What options are there for poverty-line parents when public schools – that is, schools run by local governments and funded by property tax dollars – decline? Should students be forced to remain in substandard schools while their wealthier counterparts find success at other schools? Is there a way for children to succeed in an educational system that, in many large cities in the United States and around the globe, is failing them?
Journalist Sol Stern faces these questions in his 2003 book Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice. In dealing with the issue, he endorses government-run school voucher programs as a means to rescue poor minority students from chaotic and failing public schools. It is a contentious issue; indeed the debate runs quite deep, carving divisions within political parties and religious communities. At stake is not only the future of the public education system, but, more importantly, the futures of those students trapped in failed schools.
A school voucher (also called an “education voucher”) is a certificate that enables parents to pay for children to attend a private school of their choice, rather than the local public school to which they are assigned. In theory, this would allow parents to choose the best school for their children, regardless of city boundary lines where taxes are paid. Proponents of the system cite various reasons for adopting such a free choice. For one, they contend that it is their right as taxpayers to see that their children receive the best education possible – the best bang for their buck. They also believe that extending vouchers to those most in need – who are invariably from minority groups and impoverished neighborhoods – would be a benefit to the racial and socio-economic diversity of private schools.
Critics of school choice are, by and large, sympathetic to the aims of vouchers, but refuse to endorse the system on several grounds. Some argue that a voucher system would result in an exodus of students from those public schools in direst need, miring them further into decline. This is a valid concern, says Stern, but at what cost? Surely we need to gradually reform the public school system and reverse the trend of failed schools, but shouldn’t the imperative be to rescue students from violent schools now?
Another common claim by school choice opponents in the United States is that by allowing parents to use their vouchers to pay tuition costs at religious as well as secular schools, the system violates the concept of separation of church and state. They cite American founding father Thomas Jefferson, who wrote of a “wall of separation” that should exist between religion and the government; and the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which states in part, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This so-called “Establishment Clause” has been at the core of an enormous amount of high-profile court decisions in the United States in the last thirty years, and brought the school voucher question into the national spotlight in 2002. In a landmark United States Supreme Court decision, five out of the nine judges (a bare majority) decided that the school voucher program in Cleveland, Ohio, was Constitutional and thus could continue. The justices cited the free, private choice made by the parents and emphasized that the ultimate purpose of free choice (i.e., improving education) was a secular aim. Stern writes that for the school choice movement, the decision was “a political, legal, and moral victory wrapped up in one” (218).
Growing up in Cleveland and going to private Catholic schools my entire life, I was well aware of the school voucher issue. That is to say, I was aware of how important it was to the educators at my grade school and high school who saw vouchers as a way for impoverished children to receive a quality education in a city where only one of three students graduates from high school. When the Ohio state legislature was debating school vouchers in the 1990s, the parish priest at my grade school asked us, the students and teachers, to pray that the program would not be stopped. I learned early on how moral and religious ideologies can intersect in the political world.
School choice is also a divisive issue on this side of the Atlantic. The Conservative Party proposed such a policy in the 2005 UK general election, and its subsequent defeat was blamed by some on a series of negative ads by the Labour Party that attacked the voucher plan. It is a different story in Ireland, where the government funds all public schools, but also pays the salaries of teachers in registered private schools. Students are free to choose their own school. The system has been highly successful, and this emphasis on education is regarded as an important factor in the economic success that many in Ireland have experienced.
So what is the future of school choice? In Cleveland the voucher system remains, and the city is still trying to resuscitate the public schools. Success has been difficult to quantify, and studies investigating the effects of vouchers have been conflicting. Proponents on both sides of the argument continue to battle it out. In response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Cleveland voucher case, public school teacher unions began pouring more money into defeating the movement. In January 2006, the Florida Supreme Court struck down laws that allowed for vouchers in that state. However, the U.S. government currently operates the largest federally-funded voucher program, for evacuees from the region devastated by Hurricane Katrina. So, while the question remains largely unanswered across the United States, there is no doubt that the debate will continue.
For more information on UK public services think tank Reform’s. “School Choice for all” campaign visit the Reform website.
Patrick Brereton was a JVC volunteer in 2005-6. He spent nine months as a teaching assistant at the IPOR centre, Liverpool, working with children who had otherwise been excluded from mainstream education.
