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March 19, 1999/2 Nisan 5759, Vol. 51, No. 25
What's wrong with vouchers
2 Sides
SAMUEL RABINOVE
American Jewish Committee
Read The Other Side
On the "front burner" today is the issue of tax-dollar vouchers for parents to enroll their children in any non-public school they may wish, including denominational schools. The great bulk of students in non-public schools are enrolled in religious schools.
During the past few years, the national debate over vouchers has gathered momentum, as have the efforts to authorize their adoption. Voucher bills, often aimed at "disadvantaged" students, are now pending in a number of state legislatures, including Arizona.
The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of tax-funded vouchers for religious schools. But it may be just a matter of time before litigation challenging vouchers for such schools reaches the court.
Apart from the constitutional question, what's wrong with vouchers? Why shouldn't poor parents, for example, who want to send their children to private schools but can't afford to do so, have the same freedom of educational choice that affluent parents now enjoy? As on most controversial issues there are, of course, arguments on each side. Let's examine some of the major arguments that have been advanced in favor of vouchers, and some possible responses to these arguments.
Argument: Public schools would benefit from competition. Public schools, a virtual monopoly, surely could be stimulated to do better by some real competition, i.e., giving pupils a choice to attend non-public schools at public expense.
Real competition has to be fair competition - and fair competition requires a level playing field. There is no such level playing field between public and non-public schools today. Public schools must accept - and keep - all children who apply. Non-public schools have every right to be selective, and many of them are very "choosy" indeed. In general, public schools enroll a much higher proportion of poor, disadvantaged minority and immigrant children than do private schools.
Argument: Simple Justice. Parents whose religious conscience precludes them from utilizing the public schools for which they pay taxes, and yet are compelled by the state to provide a basic secular education for their children, are in effect taxed double when they also pay tuition for their children's secular education in denominational schools.
"Double taxation" is a myth. All citizens, including single persons, childless couples, and retired couples who cannot use them, pay taxes to support public schools, which are freely open to all. Nobody is "taxed" to support a religious school, any more than anyone is "taxed" to support a church or synagogue. But public subsidies to schools which the public cannot control would be true "double taxation," in fact, it would be "taxation without representation."
Argument: Constitutionality. Since voucher money would flow to parents of all children to use as they may choose, not directly to sectarian schools, it is not a benefit to religion and hence does not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
There is no question whatever that the primary beneficiaries of any voucher legislation for non-public schools would in fact be sectarian schools, because these comprise the large majority of non-public schools. The fact that parents would be a conduit for the flow of this public money, rather than direct transmission to religious schools, is a distinction without a difference. Under the establishment clause, it is not a proper function of government to subsidize any schools, directly or indirectly, whose chief reason for being is to propagate a religious faith, whether that faith is Jewish, Roman Catholic, Unification Church, Nation of Islam, or any other. In that perspective, voucher plans do not pass constitutional muster.
Argument: Free exercise of religion. This right, guaranteed by the First Amendment, is an empty shell for parents who lack the necessary funds to implement their religious convictions, which require that their children be educated in their own denominational schools. That such schools have a constitutional right to exist is unquestioned, and they certainly do perform a vital public function.
The First Amendment guarantee of free exercise of religion means freedom from governmental impediment. It was never intended to mean freedom from private expense, any more than the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press entitles indigent would-be newspaper publishers to government funding to publish their newspapers. Religious parents who cannot afford religious school tuition payments should be aided voluntarily by their respective faiths, not compulsorily by the public treasury.
Argument: Parochial schools do a better educational job than public schools, especially for minority pupils. Black and Latino pupils in parochial schools consistently out perform those in public schools.
One might well anticipate the minority children whose parents enroll them in parochial or other private schools would indeed surpass those who remain in public schools. Parents who choose to transfer their children to private schools, more often than not, are strongly motivated toward better scholastic achievement, i.e., they expect their children to study and excel, and these expectations might well be reflected in the performance of these children. Yet it does not necessarily work out this way.
Generally, national studies of achievement test scores show that socio-economic status , rather than race, is the best predictor of a student's school achievment.
Given that private schools can pick and choose students, and thus enroll students whose socio-economic backgrounds and parent education levels are generally higher that those of public school students, it would not be surprising if they were to outperform public schools significantly. The surprise is they don't; private school students on average score only slightly better. Moreover, this private school advantage actually disappears when researchers take into account the differences between the socio-economic backgrounds of students in the two types of schools. In fact, studies that have taken this background factor into account have found a slight public school advantage in achievement. So, to the modest extent that private schools overall may out perform public schools, it is not because their teachers are necessarily better, but rather because of the more affluent and more stable student bodies they enroll.
Argument: Giving parents a choice between public and private schools would increase accountability in all schools.
At the present time, private schools do not have to account to the public, not for their admissions and discipline policies, not for the nature or the quality of their educational programs, nor for how they spend their funds or their academic results. And this is perfectly reasonable; how private schools operate is really note of the public's business. In certain respects (religion, for example) they even have a right to discriminate. Public schools, on the other hand, must adhere to all public laws and policies related to standards, access, curriculum, teacher certification and discrimination.
If, however, private schools were to receive public funds, as it has been said, "With the king's purse eventually comes the king." In other words, public dollars would arrive with public strings attached, with possible serious adverse implications for the independence of private schools.
Argument: Parents who are able to choose the kind of education they want are likely to be more satisfied and, therefore, more supportive of the school's efforts.
There is some merit to this argument. Yet parents often do have considerable choice among public schools, for example, in terms of where they decide to live, or in "magnet" schools with special curricular options and emphases. Under a voucher system, it certainly cannot be assumed that private schools will accept all applicants. It remains doubtful whether many private schools would be willing to enroll any substantial number of the really "difficult" children - the handicapped, the learning disabled, the non-English speaking children, the disruptive, troubled children from dysfunctional families - who are likely to present formidable teaching and disciplinary problems in the classroom, and who make it harder for others to be taught.
Argument: Private school vouchers would cost the public less and would improve educational quality in all schools.
It is not at all clear that vouchers for private schools would improve their quality, though very likely vouchers would result in increased tuition fees at many private schools, which would absorb much, if not all, of the amount of the vouchers. With regard to the impact of vouchers on educational quality in public schools, their cost ultimately would come from the public education budget, whether local or state. This financial drain clearly would be at the expense of public schools, many of which are already experiencing acute shortages of funding and which confront a "no new taxes" political environment.
The long run objective of voucher proponents is parity: for every tax dollar spent on a child in a public school, one tax dollar must be spent on a child in a private school.
Some public schools admittedly are in deep trouble. But the remedy urged by voucher advocates would weaken all public schools. This consequence would be unfortunate.
Samuel Rabinove is former legal director of American Jewish Committee.
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