- IN THIS REPORT
Readers will find important state-level developments, the latest evidence on a sharp contradiction confronting American parents, the Editor's View on the tragedy of blaming EFM's victims, and David Kirkpatrick on "The Idea That Will Not Die."
ARIZONA
A proposal to provide $500 tax credits for donations
to private and parochial school scholarship funds, beginning in FY 1998,
resurfaced in the final days of the legislative session. As a rider to
another bill, SB 1181, the proposal was approved on a 4-2 party-line vote
by Republican majority members of a joint House-Senate conference committee.
(Arizona Republic, 04/13/96) The Arizona legislative session ended
April 20 without further action on the bill.
FLORIDA
The 1996 Florida legislative session ended early in the
morning on May 4 with the passage of a charter school bill (HB 403) that
includes a section of Representative Steve Wise's school choice bill, the
Public Education Enhancement Program (PEEP). (See Educational Freedom
Report #33.) That section, which was section 2 of PEEP, requires each
school district to develop a plan to give parents more choice among public
schools through controlled open enrollment. Depending on the size of the
school district, from three to seven charter schools may be created that
have relaxed rules and regulations. While Representative Wise was never
allowed a hearing in the House Education Committee on PEEP, he did use
it on the House floor as an amendment to several related education bills.
When the first bill came up with his amendment attached an opponent made
a motion to lay the amendment on the table, which would have killed the
amendment. That motion was defeated 63-51. While the amendment was subsequently
ruled not germane to the bill, and House leadership kept the other bills
with the amendment attached from being heard on the floor, the combination
of the vote on the amendment and the 44 co-sponsors on the original PEEP
bill (HB 2415) shows greatly increased support for true parental choice
in Florida. With the passage of charter schools and controlled open enrollment,
Florida has taken vital first steps toward this goal. With anticipated
additional support from the fall elections, Rep. Wise plans to pass PEEP
next year. (From Gary Lieffers, assistant to Rep. Wise.)
We are pleased to report also that Tom Feeney, former Florida Representative and ardent supporter of school choice, has won a special election for another seat that was vacated, thus strengthening parental freedom in the legislature.
ILLINOIS
The "Educational Choice Act," a pilot school voucher
program sponsored by Representatives Peter Roskam and Al Salvi, was removed
from consideration in the Illinois House this month, being just short of
passage. The bill is still alive and has support from Lee Daniels, Speaker
of the House, and Pate Phillips, President of the Illinois Senate. The
"Educational Choice Act" would provide vouchers worth up to $2,500 to students
whose parents earn an income of up to 150% of the qualifying level for
Illinois' federally funded meal program. Illinois' legislative session
ended on May 22 and will resume again in the Fall. (Information provided
by Jack Roeser of the Prairie State Initiative.)
SOUTH CAROLINA
Governor David M. Beasley introduced this month into
the South Carolina Senate a constitutional amendment which would have provided
tuition vouchers for kindergarten students in the state. The amendment
was defeated on a vote of 27 to 13 on May 2. Although kindergarten would
have remained optional in South Carolina under the program, all children
attending kindergarten in the state would have been eligible after the
third year of this phased-in program. During the first year of the program,
$1,765 full-day vouchers or $882 half-day vouchers would have been available
to poverty-level families; during the second year, families between 100%
and 185% of the poverty level could have received the vouchers; during
the third year, all students would have been eligible.
Despite the amendment's defeat, Gov. Beasley came out strongly in favor of school choice and consequently has stirred up much debate in South Carolina. In an April 30 news conference Gov. Beasley stated: "It's time to allow parents this most basic decision concerning their young children. And I'd challenge anyone who steps up against it to explain why we shouldn't allow parents this choice. I know that if given the opportunity, parents will make the right choices. Undoubtedly, many will go to their local public school. And some will not: but they'll be able to choose what is best for their child." Regarding the accountability of schools receiving vouchers, he said," The ultimate regulation, and the one that will perhaps prove to be the most effective, is the one that will permit parents to vote with their feet." True to those convictions, Gov. Beasley is currently working on how next to approach the issue of school choice in South Carolina. (Information provided by Jim Carper, Education Advisor to the Governor. Copies of Governor Beasley's amendment are now available from the Blum Center.)
WISCONSIN — ON
FIGLEAFS AND ATTRITION
A couple of perspectives on the state of affairs in Wisconsin
may be helpful.
First, in their arguments against expanding the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) to include parental choices of religiously-informed schools, the defenders of educational finance monopoly (EFM) are relying primarily on the church-state smoke screen. That smoke screen, the ACLU and its NEA allies appear to hope, will be a suitable fig leaf for judges whose political background inclines them to support monopoly and who need a cover behind which to hide.
Time will tell how many Wisconsin jurists finally take this out. Whatever the number, it will not change the simple, powerful truth of things: aid to parents who are free to choose whatever school they judge best for their child is not aid to churches, and it is not even in its primary purpose and intention aid to schools. No school, and certainly no church, is a necessary beneficiary of a parental aid program. Parents are the exclusive necessary beneficiaries.
Thus to blow church-state smoke at a program such as MPCP expansion is in truth to penalize parents-as-citizens who happen also to believe that a religiously-informed school is best for their child. EFM's defenders want to deprive those parents of their natural rights, including their religious freedom rights.
Second, since the ACLU and NEA know that prevailing U.S. Supreme Court opinions (Witters, Mueller, and Zobrest in particular) make ultimate judicial success highly likely for MPCP expansion, and the Ohio program as well, one may wonder why such opponents of parental freedom are working so hard to frustrate parents' rights. After all, surely they must lose in the end, right?
There are two fairly obvious reasons why EFM's defenders are fighting with all resources available to them to block parents' rights in Wisconsin, Ohio, and the District of Columbia. First, they hope to win a war of attrition. They will win if parental freedom advocates lose heart and concentration when confronted by temporary blocks such as current Wisconsin judicial obstruction. Second, the ultimate reward EFM defenders hope to receive, no doubt, if they can obstruct change enough, is a reconstituted Supreme Court that could derail Witters, Mueller, and Zobrest and, through the majority-defying magic of judicial review, find that "Eureka — the Constitution does prohibit aid to parents."
IN THE STATES — THE CONTRADICTION SPREADS
AND DEEPENS
We have often made the point: there is a radical incongruity,
even contradiction, between a) rightfully holding parents accountable for
their children's behavior and b) wrongfully robbing those same parents
of their right to choose the educational option they think will best help
them raise those children successfully.
The contradiction was driven home powerfully by the New York Times April 10, 1996, story "Holding Parents Responsible as Children's Misdeeds Rise." It cites the National Conference of State Legislatures as saying that, in the last few years, about half the states have enacted laws bringing sanctions, such as fines or even imprisonment, to bear against parents of young offenders.
As the article makes clear, such laws raise some questions as well as they answer others. But there seems to be no question about this: the true instinct to encourage parents to accept responsibility for the whole upbringing of their children is devastatingly frustrated by educational finance monopoly (EFM), the American K-12 school funding policy. That policy, by imposing a massive and growing financial penalty on parents who want independent education for their youngsters, directly attacks parental capacity to guide the child's environment and growth.
None of the states passing parental accountability laws has as yet implemented parental freedom in education provisions, choosing instead to impose on their parents the harsh incongruity here described. The reason? Because EFM up to now has been too well protected by special interests tied to prevailing political power. Perhaps parental awareness that with accountability should come educational freedom can help bring rationality and justice to educational funding. Parents should demand capacity equal to responsibility.
- "Ah, if only those 1500 drowned passengers had been better
swimmers," said one of the Titanic's builders. "Yes," said another,
"and more cold-resistant."
I suppose we might say of these two imaginary companions that they were blaming their victims. And if one of the casualties were momentarily brought back to life, and answered them with "Well, that's right, I never thought of that as I sank beneath the waves, foolishly cursing the shortage of lifeboats and the inadequacy of the ship's architecture," then we might say that the Titanic's builders, the villains of this piece, had achieved the perfect responsibility-escaping condition: victims blaming victims.
The defenders of educational finance monopoly (EFM — wherein all tax dollars dedicated to education are assigned by governmental mechanisms, and only to governmental schools) employ many smoke screens, and this is one of the more insidious ones: "Well, if parents really want their children in independent schools there is no law preventing it. Let them dig deeper, that's all." People who say such things are akin to those builders of the Titanic. And, when they have conditioned parent victims to echo such refrains, they have achieved that same escape from responsibility noted above: victims blaming victims.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel of February 2, 1996, carried a large, human-interest story about the school at Holy Cross Church, and, along the way, referred to the defunct school at a neighboring parish, Sacred Heart. These are not central city parishes, where church school death has been sickeningly routine. They are in the outer ring of the city itself, in neighborhoods of middling incomes where the passing of church schools, once rare, is becoming increasingly common. Sacred Heart's school had closed in 1994, and the Journal Sentinel story centered on the heroic efforts of Holy Cross parents to keep their parish school alive. Though in 1996 it is about one-fourth the size it had been thirty years previous, it is still breathing and parents are striving to keep it going.
The Journal Sentinel, strongly opposed to parental freedom of school choice, and strongly supportive of educational finance monopoly, could feature this story, and present it sympathetically, for one reason: no one cited in it raised public policy issues. All those cited, instead, were victims blaming victims. Thus, for example, one Holy Cross parish leader, even while admitting that many parents could not afford the $1500.00 tuition, insisted that others could if they would just get their priorities straight. "Many parents need to take a priority check on what they're paying for first. This (school) is a lot more important than Nintendo."
That is an effective rhetorical shot, no doubt, but it essentially ignores drastic public policy failure. We can be entirely committed to "priority checks," to putting first things first, and all the rest. Indeed, we should be. But this, too, is true: if you have three or four youngsters, even a $1500.00 tuition means $5000.00 or $6000.00 per year, to come from entirely discretionary income, even as you must pay the entirely non-discretionary and ever-increasing taxes for the government monopoly's schools. Multiply that times the years the children will be in school and in college and ask: is it any wonder many parents, despite their strong desire for independent schools, decide they simply cannot embark on such a course?
A related and too successful smoke screen is seen in this wound, self-administered by another parish leader: explaining that some costs might be controlled by greater collaboration with a neighboring parish school, a Holy Cross School supporter said such steps would have to be taken "to make Catholic education cost-effective." This regarding a system already providing superior education at one-third or so the cost of government-owned schools!
What we need to understand, by way of gentle corrective on these victims conditioned to blame themselves, and by way of not so gently correcting an often misguided public discourse, is that long-term heroism, extraordinary action sustained for an extended period of time, is no rational basis for public policy. We do not expect heroic behavior, except in extraordinary, crisis circumstances such as wartime. Only an irrational society would. To call for more efficiency from most independent schools is an unrealistic objective when one considers the comparatively high efficiency with which they have long since worked. "Greater sacrifice" and "greater efficiency," like "greater virtue," cannot be quarreled with as general, abstract admonitions. But as specific counsel for financially-limited parents and poorly-financed schools that have continuously surpassed all requirements for efficient behavior these generalities are not helpful. For sponsors of such schools, they are self-defeating; for public policy discourse they are misleading and misguided. For Catholic parents of struggling schools to talk about more efficiency, therefore, as a fundamental way of saving these schools, is really to accept victimization and injustice with the meekness of a lamb. Such meekness has its place in life, but not when it unintentionally endorses serious social injustice and loss of parental influence on the educational environment they want for their children. At that point, meekness is no virtue, and vigorous rejection of such nonsense is no vice.
Another major smoke screen employed goes along the lines of "If they want it, let them pay for it. It is only right if they don't want what 'we' provide." Judging by its success, this red herring has a superficial appeal to it, but it will not stand even the slightest analysis. Let us think for a moment. Elementary and secondary education are essentially non-discretionary. We are obliged to provide them for our children and for others. Even if we were not obliged, I hope we would want to, to help ensure that those youngsters fulfill their potential. Think, also, that we already provide for education for all students via taxes. That is governmental policy. I already have, and any Catholic or other parent already has a portion of that tax money due him for his children. The only question is how his portion of that money will be assigned. Through EFM, the humanly destructive and self-serving educational finance monopoly, which we presently employ? Or through parents' choice of educational venue for their children, thus matching parent responsibility with parent capacity? This shows the hollowness and the misguidedness of "...let them pay for it if they want it... ." "They" (we) are already paying for it! They already have an obligation and a right to educate their children, and they already have government provision for such education.
Rational, truth-serving public policy talk about educational funding, therefore, is not talk about "them paying for it." Rational, truth-serving public policy talk is about how the money will be assigned and allocated: educational finance monopoly vs. parents' freedom. Any Catholic parent, any parent of any sort, who accepts as objectively useful the spurious claim of "let them pay for it" is accepting a self-imposed victimhood. That parent is just being bamboozled. All around the world, in educationally more enlightened democracies, parents pay once and then choose where their school funds will be assigned. They have school choice without financial penalty, just as America's parents should have it.
The shrinking and dying of Roman Catholic schools across the land have not resulted from failure of Roman Catholic parents in any realistic sense. Those parents have been amazingly constant, and they still are. The parents in the two parishes used here as examples, both well known to me, have wanted those schools, have wanted them badly. But there has been another constant: a public policy that has deprived them of the financial freedom which should be theirs. For a long time, America's Catholic parents were spared much of the inevitably destructive impact of the financial vise. They benefited from a "fair weather" accident, a lucky break, which finally ceased. I refer, of course, to the generosity of the nuns and others who gave Roman Catholics what amounted to a private school choice program: the ability to choose independent Catholic schools without significant financial penalty.
That was an historical accident — enormously important, but accidental and finally impermanent. It had for a long time the effect of negating the financial vise — the vise of rising school taxes and rising private school tuition — for American Catholics and it had the ironic effect, therefore, of removing the potentially squeakiest wheel from the American educational scene. That, in turn, gave educational finance monopoly a long period of time in which to sink its self-perpetuating roots deeply without hearing great anguish and outcry from the Catholic community. Protestants were being well-served by the overt presence of the Protestant ethic permeating America's governmental schools, until it, too, was swept away by legal and political attacks on community norms. Catholics greatly absented themselves from that overtly Protestant, and often anti-Catholic environment, and as a result the kind of friction-based political dynamic which in Europe led typically to state systems with religious pluralism built into them never occurred in this country. To finish out the historical picture, the nuns' generosity died its own death as their numbers constricted. That happened gradually over the last three decades or so, and has as a parallel the slow, begrudging strangulation of American Catholic schools, now deprived of their accidental private choice program, and without a just, sane, parent-serving school funding policy to take its place.
The agony at Holy Cross has not stemmed from parental failure, any more than did the death of Sacred Heart's school. They are the symptomatic results of a perverse public policy which created educational finance monopoly, and then created the financial vise that squeezes parents until they lose a practical capacity to choose schools they desire for their youngsters. Those parents are held fully responsible for the child's upbringing, in all its facets. That is as it should be. But then they confront an educational funding policy which says, in effect: "And, by the way, on one of the most important of your duties, the education of your child, we will deprive you of your rights to decide the educational environment you judge best for that child." That is the fundamental contradiction and injustice of today's school funding policy, educational finance monopoly.
If America's Catholics, and all parents and citizens who care for justice and the educational welfare of America's youth, begin to grasp these realities they will insist that politicians in every state stop defending the monopolistic status quo. Those citizens will see their profound interest in breaking the finance monopoly and replacing it with parental freedom in education: school choice without financial penalty.n
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The Blum Center grants full permission for all of its documents to be copied, in part or in whole, to extend the reach of the Center's messages and information. We appreciate it when our readers keep us apprised of state and national developments in the area of school choice, particularly legislative developments. Any Blum Center documents not available on our web page may be obtained by contacting us by telephone, fax, or mail. Virgil C. Blum Center for Parental Freedom in Education |
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