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- Contents:
- IN THIS REPORT
Readers will find important state-level, national, and organizational information. Also to be found is part one of a three-part Editor’s View on "Where Do We Go From Here?" This is an adaptation of a paper presented September 17 at a Washington D.C. "Summit on Parent Educational Choice," organized by Dr. William J. Tobin.
LOUISIANA
The Blum Center recently
was reminded that there are not five but six states with genuine school
choice programs in place. Louisiana now represents not only the oldest
but also the most limited school choice program in the United States: since
1979 Louisiana has provided a tax credit of $25 against income taxes for
any and all educational expenses incurred for each dependent child in any
kindergarten, elementary, or secondary school. Governor Edwards proposed
and signed this law in 1979. Though the dollars are very small, indeed,
Louisiana’s 1979 provision to parents of children in all schools qualifies
that state for listing on the "honor roll." (Information taken from the
Summer, 1998, issue of Parent Power, publication of the National
Coalition of Catholic School Parent Association.)
MAINE
On August 11 U.S.
District Court Judge D. Brock Hornby ruled against a group of parents who
had sued the state, claiming that they had a constitutional right to send
their children to tuition vouchers that could be used at religious schools.
(Contact the Blum Center for copies of Elwood Strout, et al., v. Commissioner,
Maine Department of Education.)
While newspapers and opponents of school choice have made much of this decision, Judge Hornby in no way attacks school choice in his decision against the parents. Just as in Miller v. Benson, a 1993 case from Wisconsin, Hornby ruled that Maine’s constitution is silent regarding the matter: the right would need to be legislated, and no such right has been legislated so far in Maine. In fact, Judge Hornby states plainly: "Whether Maine might permit its school districts ultimately to choose to provide such options and whether the practice would be constitutional is a case for another day." (New York Times, 08/15/98; Portland Press Herald, 08/15/98)
OHIO
The Ohio Supreme Court
will hear oral arguments for the case defending the constitutionality of
the Cleveland Scholarship Program on September 28. The decision, which
will not come for some months yet, should not interfere with the operation
of the program this year, it is believed. Meanwhile, the program drew fewer
applicants in this its third year. There were only 4,393 applicants by
the time the March deadline arrived. The deadline was extended, so that
a total of 5,396 people applied this year. In 1996 over 6,000 parents applied.
There are 3,914 using vouchers this year. Ms. Bert Holt, Director of the
Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program, says, along with other officials,
that the reason for the decline in applicants this year is due to increased
competition from the public school system. With the voucher program serving
its intended purpose, "the Cleveland public schools are giving parents
more to like." (Plain Dealer, 08/27/98, 08/22/98)
The State Controlling Board announced on August 31 that it has approved a $357,912 extension of its contract with Indiana University in order to continue the University’s study of the Cleveland Scholarship Program. This study examines what the effects of the program are on participants, on public school budgets, and on normal school operations, such as transportation. At this point the University has too little data to make any statements about the program and its effects. (Plain Dealer, 09/01/98)
PENNSYLVANIA
Hearings began in
Delaware County Court on September 2 in the lawsuit against the Southeast
Delco School District, which approved a private school voucher plan for
its students last March. The lawsuit was filed in April. (For additional
information on the case, see Freedom Reports #58 and 59.) (Philadelphia
Inquirer, 09/03/98, 08/14/98)
Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, Archbishop of Philadelphia, wrote an editorial that was published in the September 8 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer in which he defended school choice as "a matter of justice" and sheer "common sense." Repeating the offer he made in recent letters to Mayor Rendell and superintendents of the thirteen school districts in the Philadelphia area (see Freedom Reports #60 and 61), he said that nearly 26,000 seats in the schools of his archdiocese could be made available to the area’s parents through a voucher program. This, he says, would solve local problems involving overcrowding and budgets: "twin challenges of too many students and too little money."
"If these public school districts were to adopt school vouchers, everyone would win," wrote Cardinal Bevilacqua. No child would be forced to attend a different school, but the choice to do so would be made possible. "For parents facing financial hardship, it is an imperative. That is why, separate from this offer, I will continue to advocate school choice for all parents." For copies of the Archbishop’s editorial, please contact the Blum Center.
WISCONSIN
On August 31 The People
for the American Way Foundation filed a request for the U.S. Supreme Court
to review the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision regarding the federal
constitutionality of MPCPII — the expansion of the Milwaukee Parental Choice
Program to include religious schools.
In an unusual move the Institute for Justice, which defended the expansion before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, announced that it supports the U.S. Supreme Court’s review. This gesture will apparently increase the chance that the U.S. Supreme Court will review the case. "This is the best case anywhere on an issue that is going to reach the Supreme Court one way or the other," said Clint Bolick, litigation director for the Institute for Justice. If the Court takes the case, it will issue a decision by June of 1999. Oral arguments would begin sometime after October 5, when the Court convenes for its 1998-1999 session.
In their appeal to the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs are relying heavily on a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Committee for Public Education v. Nyquist. In that case the Court ruled that a New York private school voucher program subsidized and advanced a religious mission and was therefore unconstitutional. However, Justice Donald Steinmetz of the Wisconsin Supreme Court dealt specifically with that precedent when he wrote the Court’s majority opinion in June. He noted that the New York program was not neutral — it offered tuition grants to parents in private schools in order to keep them from going to different schools. The benefits of the program were not available to all parents, only to parents with children in private schools. Steinmetz, at least, believes that the Milwaukee program is neutral, and has a clear secular purpose (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 09/06/98, 09/01/98; Washington Times, 09/02/98)
NATIONAL
NEWS
The 30th edition of
the Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitude Toward the Public
Schools, released on August 25, has once again demonstrated an increase
in support for parental freedom in education. As we have mentioned in past
issues of the Freedom Report (e.g., 51 and 39) this poll
consistently phrases its questions regarding school choice in the most
destructive manner possible. An example: "Do you favor or oppose allowing
students and parents to choose a private school to attend at public expense?"
Though that question undoubtedly portrays school choice from a skewed perspective,
each year more Americans see through the rhetoric. This year only 50% opposed
the "destructive version" of school choice. 44% supported it and 6% didn’t
know.. Last year 52% opposed it while 44% supported and 4% didn’t know.
In 1995 there were 65% opposed with 33% in favor and 2% who didn’t know.
In 1993, 74% opposed, 24% supported, and 2% didn’t know.
Other results: 73% of American voters support the Coverdell proposal — tax-free savings accounts for money that parents set aside for private and religious school tuition costs. 51% support and only 45% oppose a basic school choice plan. Among nonpublic school parents, 74% support and 21% oppose. Among public school parents, 56% support and 40% oppose. All of those percentages show higher support for choice than in previous years. For full-tuition voucher plans, 48% favor and 46% oppose. Those percentages are 69% and 22% among nonpublic school parents and 55% and 42% among public school parents, respectively. For partial-tuition voucher plans, 52% support and 41% oppose. Among nonpublic school parents, it was 61% and 25; among public school parents, 58% and 37%. Note: all voucher questions exclude public schools as eligible schools of choice. For full-tuition tax credits, 56% support and 42% oppose. Among nonpublic parents, it was 89% and 11%; among public school parents, 63% and 35%. For partial-tuition tax credits, 66% favor and 30% oppose; nonpublic school parents: 89% and 11%; public school parents: 73% and 24%. Contact the Blum Center for additional information about the Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll.
Noteworthy
Item
¨
The National Congress of Black Conservatives (N-CBC) will host the Great
Lakes School Choice Organizers Conference on October 3 at the University
of Detroit. For more information, contact Jacqueline Gordon, President
& CEO, at 301-464-7889. The N-CBC recently reaffirmed its position
on school choice in an open letter to the leaders of the NAACP. That letter
strongly and clearly defends school choice. It closes by stating that if
the NAACP is not willing to "get on board" the school choice "train," then
it had better get out of the way. For copies of the letter, contact the
Blum Center.
- How can the five developed,
and many undeveloped snapshots we have so far, help us create a
truly big picture of parental freedom in education: school choice without
financial penalty across the land? Some strategic and some tactical answers
follow.
Basic Terms of
the Argument
Today's largely unfinished
picture is, in fact, a moving picture of struggle in all American political
jurisdictions. The struggle is over the answer to another question: since
all these political communities tax citizens to provide kindergarten through
12th grade education, how shall the dollars in question be assigned to
the task? That is the essential educational finance question over which
people should be and to a considerable extent are struggling in this country.
The traditional status quo answer: a policy by which all tax dollars
dedicated to education are to be assigned only by state bureaucratic
mechanisms, and only to the state's own schools. That is what I
call educational finance monopoly, or EFM. Such a funding device imposes
a financial penalty on anyone who chooses independent schools.
The primary alternative funding policy is for parents and guardians to assign some or all of those K-12 tax dollars to the schools they think best for their children, thus reducing or eliminating the financial burden involved if they choose independent alternatives. And that is what I mean by parental freedom in education: school choice without financial penalty.
The Decisive
Role of Social Inertia
The status quo
developed in history by conscious and unconscious actions. It has lasted
a very long time because it operated for most of that time under "fair-weather"
conditions, favorable social, economic, and geopolitical conditions that
masked its flaws; and because of the unnatural silence of the potential
squeakiest wheel, the Roman Catholic community, which in Europe demanded
choice, but in the U.S. opted out of the general system. Two things occur
when such a policy exists for a long time and operates in such a situation:
first, around that status quo, EFM, there develops social inertia,
the habit of things long done and a predisposition against and suspicion
of basic change. Second, around that policy there grow structures
and vested interests that benefit from it, want its continuance, and will
naturally oppose its weakening or abandonment. These interests have as
primary tools the manipulation of social inertia, using smoke screens devised
to protect it from attack; the active support of "altruistic corollaries"
such as the school boards and PTAs; the reinforcement of judicial review
servicing particularly the interests of those, such as the ACLU, who appear
most happy when religious influences are most marginalized, that is, when
the believer-as-citizen is deprived of full political citizenship; and
the iron triangle of political control: well-funded professional interests
supporting bureaucratic structures and legislative control points long
cultivated and, in effect, in political alliance with the vested interests
surrounding EFM.
The ultimate disaster in this regard occurs when the status quo's particular means — governmentally created, defined, owned and funded schools — comes to be thought of as indistinguishable from the end itself — the educational perfecting of children for their own sake and society's general welfare. When so-called "public schools" come to be thought of as equivalent to "education," the means is treated as an end and is essentially beyond serious critique or reform. There will be "reforms." Indeed, as in the U.S., there will be perpetual, noisy, and costly ones, but never aimed to touch the key question: who decides where the money goes.
Much American business concern for educational improvement has foundered on precisely these shoals: desire to help "education" becomes "help public schools" because, "that's where most students are" or "that's where most problems are"; the business effort then focuses on "public schools" rather than "education for youth" and soon, without even knowing it, the business "reformers" end up reinforcing the very structures producing the inferior students. In the meantime the monopoly prospers and independent schools in cities weaken and die. In such extreme but common cases one sees the extreme but common effects of social inertia.
Without some grasp of this abstract but strategic concept — that the status quo is wrapped in social inertia and is easily manipulated by vested interests — the operational, tactical struggle for parental freedom is likely to falter, as it has faltered in many places, even places that were early to the effort, for example, Colorado, California, Oregon. Absent a firm grasp of how difficult a matter this is, early failure or rebuff leads to frustration — "Why isn't this obviously good thing succeeding? Oh hell, I'm tired, anyway." Once the strategic reality is firmly understood, then the antidote to frustration and withdrawal is evident: the rational time frame to commit to the effort of change in the field of educational funding is the duration. Nothing else makes sense when one sees the bulwarks supporting the status quo and the tirelessness and deep pockets of its defenders.
And another important point can be seen when social inertia is understood: it should help school choice advocates avoid misdirecting their criticism. They need not and should not target "public schools," nor "public school teachers." These are not the fundamental enemy in any case but, in addition, they are remembered fondly by many whose help you must enlist. At the very heart of social inertia resides this nostalgic reality.
EFM vs Parental
Freedom: Their Natural Results
The correct target
of educational reform when the issues of school choice and parental freedom
are properly understood, and properly portrayed, is EFM itself. It is loved
only by its direct beneficiaries, and thus it is most susceptible to critique,
and it is in truth the root of many of the problems in American K-12. EFM
is one way, the prevailing way, to assign tax dollars that
are dedicated to education in the K-12 area. As noted above, EFM simply
says that tax dollars dedicated to K-12 education are to be dispensed only
by state bureaucratic monopolies and only to the state's own schools —
that is EFM, and that is the humanly destructive policy that should be
the target of parental freedom reformers.
EFM can be seen by
most objective observers as intrinsically suspect, because of what they
already know about monopoly and about human nature. What we know about
monopoly and human nature can tell us that EFM can be expected to:
2) hurt independent schools, often onto death, by attaching to their selection a financial penalty that chokes off natural parent choices and the money that would accompany them,
3) block parental love's natural course as a director of education by blocking parental capacity to select the specific educational environment in which the child will be educated,
4) thereby block parental-guardian ability to determine the ethical environment in which education will occur,
5) thereby cut off the roots of serious ethical formation, which only can happen in an environment capable of specific and pointed ethical teaching,
6) inflict a drastic injustice on those same parents by depriving them of the ability to guide children, even as we at the same time hold those parents responsible for the child's behavior,
7) and, thus, frustrate
and negate the virtues of love and justice that should underpin and drive
any rational educational funding policy.
An alternative way to assign tax dollars dedicated to education: parental freedom in education via school choice without financial penalty. This is the North Star toward which school choice advocates are, or should be, moving. As I define it, it simply means a) how much are we going to appropriate for K-12 education, b) how many children are to be educated, c) divide a) by b), adjust as judged appropriate for handicaps and low income needs and get the resultant number of dollars to parents and guardians with one instruction: use these dollars most productively to pay for the education, governmental or independent, that you think best for the children in your care.
Lest you think such a simple formula is drastic or utopian, please know: essentially this describes such places in being as Australia, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, among others. Lest you think we must leave these shores for examples, it essentially describes, also, the spirit of the GI Bill. Lest you think we have only historical examples, this essentially describes, also, the current theory underlying the tactics of Republican Governor Arne Carlson of Minnesota, and Democratic Mayor John Norquist of Milwaukee.
This parental freedom
model — what one would do if freed of social inertia's captivity, if one
were in "a state of nature" fleeing as far as possible from an educational
finance monopoly — has the great virtue of being natural: it harnesses
parent and guardian love rather than impeding it, it establishes a just
relationship between what we expect of parents and what we encourage
and enable them to do. Just as we saw some logically inevitable
problems with EFM, problems which then appear in fact as well as in logic,
so we can see some logically inevitable blessings that can flow instantly
from parental freedom in education:
2) this can be expected to manifest itself, for example, in behavioral expectations, and an ethical orientation of explicit support for or at least neutrality toward parental values,
3) schools can and do establish behavioral rules and parents are expected to enforce them — models for school safety and peace already exist in independent schools in even the worst neighborhoods in the country,
4) independent schools are automatically restored to a level playing field from a financial point-of-view, given a chance to function if they can function well,
5) governmental schools are encouraged to excel so as to make themselves choiceworthy, when all parents can choose — and this could be expected to extend to some reinstating of ethical capacity within those governmental schools, an ethical capacity too easily surrendered to court challenges in a monopolistic environment, where surrender is the line of least resistance,
6) citizen faith in educational budgeting is likely to be restored in a comparative and competitive environment unlike a command environment — there is a better likelihood of getting most bang for a buck, especially if you build into your choice program efficiency incentives such as a saving-for-college component from any unspent K-12 dollars,
7) and finally the
argument has been gotten right: monopoly always should bear the
burden of proof to justify itself, should never be simply accepted, even
if it is just inherited and has been around a long time.
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