One Step Closer to Educational Justice

Third Quarter 1998

by James W. Skillen

WASHINGTON, D.C.—What a contrast between the Wisconsin Supreme Court's decision in early June to uphold a voucher program for Milwaukee's poorest children and the argument put forward by opponents of a congressional voucher proposal for the poorest children in Washington, D.C.!

During recent congressional debate, Rep. Diana Degette (D-CO) said that "If we begin public vouchers, we might just as well abandon public schools." This, despite the fact that Washington, D.C.'s, schools are among the worst in the nation and many families have already abandoned them. By contrast, Wisconsin sought to address Milwaukee's failing schools by instituting a voucher system to give the poorest families some choices. That program now allows vouchers to be used at religious schools, and the state's supreme court said this is justified. The program does not favor or mandate religious schools; it simply allows parents to choose them if they want. The whole program is designed to fulfill, not to abandon, the public's obligation to offer good education to all children.

The Wisconsin decision is a bright spot on the horizon of educational reform efforts, though it will undoubtedly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The issue of education is not confined to the courts, however. It is one of the hottest of today's political topics and will feature big in this fall's elections. What does the Wisconsin decision represent and why is it so important?

Today, the word "public" has come to be identified only with government-run schools, which are thought to be non-sectarian or non-religious. What the Wisconsin court decision may help to change is this mistaken confinement of the word "public." The fact is that publicly approved schooling in most states includes private schools, "parochial" schools, and home schooling. Since this is true, why should tax dollars collected from all taxpayers go to serve only those children who attend government-run schools? Why maintain the present system of financial discrimination, which confines many poor and minority children to highly inferior and even degrading schools and denies equitable support to parents who, for religious or other reasons, want to use non-government schools approved and licensed by the states?

To address the crisis of the present system of educational governance we must challenge the old assumptions about public education head on. For example, we should use the word "public" to refer to public support of all publicly approved means of education, and within that framework we should argue that financial discrimination against religious parents and schools is unjust. Taking this approach, we can see that most of the present proposals for voucher experiments, such as the one Congress proposed for Washington, D.C., are not adequate. Funding a small voucher of $1,000 to $3,000 for only a small percentage of poor people is doubly unjust. It means selecting some poor people for an advantage that others will not receive and leaving many of those who are eligible for vouchers in a position of being unable to use them because they cannot afford the additional tuition that some independent schools charge.

What is needed is not a few crumbs from the public table sprinkled unfairly to a few parents to allow them to opt out of public schools. No, a new system is needed that provides full and equal funding of all children in all the schools their parents choose, whether those be charter schools, government-run schools, church-run schools, or independent religious or non-religious schools.

Among the arguments usually offered in opposition to this reform proposal, two stand out: 1) that only public schools can offer a common civic education capable of holding the republic together, and 2) that only public schools are open to everyone on a nonsectarian basis.

The problem with the first argument is that non-government schools are as capable as government-run schools of training children to become good citizens. Genuine pluralism of educational choice would not keep local, state, or federal governments from mandating that every child learn civics, English, mathematics, and other essential building blocks of citizenship. Governments don't have to own and run all the schools to make sure that schools do what is essential for a strong republic. But there is also no reason why different schools should not be allowed to teach the essentials from their own philosophical or religious vantage point and to offer courses that go well beyond the essentials of citizenship.

The second argument that only public schools are able to be nonsectarian and non-exclusive is mistaken on two counts. The first count is that no school can be neutral and non-sectarian in its curriculum. The decision, for example, to treat education as if religion can be excluded from it manifests a non-neutral worldview. In that sense, a Catholic or Jewish school is no more "sectarian" than any of today's public schools.

And this brings us to the second count. Government's responsibility to assure that no child is excluded from a fair and equal education, regardless of race, sex, or religion, should not be confused with the idea that a single, government-run school system can provide such an education to all children. To the contrary, precisely because education is a decidedly moral, cultural, mind-shaping enterprise, the only way government can remain properly neutral and unbiased is to support as diverse a range of schools as parents want to choose. If government puts all its financial weight on the side of one kind of school, it immediately violates its own neutrality and obligation to serve all citizens without exception.

In response to the charge that public funding of diverse schools would violate the separation of church and state because some schools are religious, the answer is straightforward. If "public education" means government support of the free education of every child, then public funding ought to be distributed in ways that respect the different educational philosophies families have. If some families choose explicitly religious schools, this in no way involves government in the establishment of religion. Government is simply funding parent-chosen education and upholding the First Amendment right of its citizens to exercise their religious freedom. This is precisely what the Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed.

A radical change in governance and funding will not solve every educational problem. Change in the direction of full and equitable pluralism will not, by itself, renew our culture or guarantee excellent education. But it will go a long way toward restoring public confidence in government's ability to uphold justice for all.