School Vouchers
There are many examples of government funding, both existing and proposed, which amount to using taxpayer money to support religious causes. Vouchers are a particularly notable example because they affect another core arm of the social welfare system, the public schools (News Article). The basic idea behind school vouchers is that parents who don't want their children educated in public schools can apply for a stipend from the government (now more then $7000 a year in some cases) to support a private school alternative. Their proponents appeal to problems of classroom over crowding, erosion of educational standards, and otherwise objectionable social and cultural environments that characterize some intercity public schools. Undoubtedly, problems like these amount to a serious ongoing challenge. However, the notion that they justify paying families to abandon the public school system in favor of private schools, most of them religiously oriented, amounts to an unequivocal use of American taxpayer money to subsidize religion. For this and other reasons, most of the States where a voucher system has been proposed have wisely rejected it. Nevertheless, the call for a voucher system persists and is now part of the President’s education reform initiatives (News Article).
In essence, school vouchers amount to another form of government disenfranchisement in the service of private sector factional interests. Moreover, the idea that the government should be a check-writing benefactor to private school parents, amounts to unsound business practice. What it effectively does, is increase the workload on the social welfare bureaucracy, drain needed funds from the public school system, and also unfairly forces the larger population of taxpayers to subsidize private schools, most of which are religious. The countering argument has been that the government wouldn't actually be subsidizing religious education because the vouchers are handed to the parents who then make the decision about what alternative school to employ. Still, to take this seriously, one might just as will assert that everyone dissenting against government funding of “non-profit” charity programs should also be allotted a large yearly stipend, which they can then donate to the "non-profit" organization of their choice. The citizens that want their children educated in a private school should kindly do so on their own dime and time, not ours.
The idea of a voucher system is problematic on other grounds. First, most established private schools, religious or otherwise, do not admit every student that comes knocking on their door. Acceptance ratios in accredited private schools as low as 1 out of 10 applicants is not unusual. Moreover, social, economic, and/or religious biases frequently if not inevitably intervene on the selection process. Consequently, many people in the lower economic strata who opt for a private school alternative would be forced to seek out less proven alternatives. If a school voucher system does pass muster, the number of ways it could be exploited are almost enumerable. It could very conceivably result in an epidemic of fly-by-night private schools, representing just about every religious faction imaginable, with accredited instructors and excellence in the "Three R's" not being the primary objective of the curators. Certainly the biblical creationists must be licking their chops at the possibilities.
Unfortunately, the conditions in some intercity schools are deplorable enough to make a voucher system tempting out of sheer humanistic sympathy. The problem is that the failing school districts cannot be allowed to dictate public education lawmaking for the entire nation. In the truly deplorable cases, higher government authority must lean on the offending cities and school districts to swiftly and decisively clean up their act. Although a difficult prescription in its own right, it is far more appropriate then creating the potential for a mass exodus from the public schools by setting unsound congressional and judicial precedents on the federal level. Furthermore, if the conditions in some intercity schools are really so deplorable relative to the parents expectations, then perhaps the parents should consider moving to another school district, city, or another state where their children's educational needs are better accommodated by the public school system.
Indeed, the arguments favoring school vouchers appeal strongly to the assumption of a nationwide erosion in educational standards, and of course, the “erosion in traditional values". The real problem is figuring out just how much of the attendant hype is legitimate, versus how much is just propaganda in the service of leveraging support for the right wing political agenda (article). There may indeed be a crisis going on in some states and in some intercity school districts. But that doesn't necessarily translate to a nation wide epidemic (myth versus fact). Undoubtedly, the public schools face the challenge of achieving and sustaining a high quality educational environment. It always has and always will, because it operates in the midst of a dynamic and evolving national culture. This doesn't mean that the public education in America doesn't have hard problems to overcome. However, the correct solution is to repair the public school system where it is broken rather then pay parents to disenfranchise it. To the extent that there is a nation wide crisis of any tangible kind, it's definitely not the one the religious right would have us believe.
As a perspective on the challenges of public education, consider the following scenario. Some notable maladies did emerge from the social engineering movement, which began back in the 1960's. Generally, it was aimed at leveling the educational playing field across all socioeconomic lines. Issues of discrimination, civil rights, and equality of opportunity were painfully salient national issues and the public school system didn't manage to stay immune. It’s a well-accepted fact that formal education and therefore high school diplomas are virtually essential for any reliable chance of economic success in this nation. As such, the social engineering movement was aimed at affording the same quality of education across the board. This was intended to give all children, irrespective of race, ethnic background, or socioeconomic status, an equal chance to succeed. Although a worthy cause in any era, the downside was that it forced public schools to become excessively political entities. So much so, that the ability to enforce solid educational standards became vulnerable to pressures from just about every conceivable side of society.
Traditional standards of achievement in English literacy, mathematics, science, and other core areas were forced to suck it up to political sensitivities about racial and ethnic biasing in course content and testing criteria. With politically dominated school boards and the PTAs wielding the hammer, the teachers were also forced to water down curriculum and test standards to compensate for whatever racial/cultural differences, real or imagined, might favor one child over another in receiving a passing grade. Every loving parent wants their children to get passing grades and thus are likely to protest heavily if they think their kids are being discriminated against. Sometimes the complaints are justified, but unfortunately over-playing issues of racial and ethnic fairness can only be at the expense of legitimate standards of academic achievement.
This collective lowering of the bar may satisfy parental pride and politically motivated quotas, but it also means kids with just average gifts can cruise through their mandatory school years without hardly cracking a book. Perhaps a bit overstated, but these are the type of situational factors that help breed inattentiveness, substandard intellectual discipline, underachievement, and juvenal delinquency. In such case both the average and gifted kids get cheated out of the opportunities, challenges, and rewards that would otherwise motivate them to do the best they can. In addition, if things are allowed to evolve this way, the teacher workforce itself is bound to realize a corresponding degradation. Many good teachers will give up in frustration because they can't maintain the kind of standards they know they should. Fewer new college graduates will be willing to waist their talent on a defective and politically corrupt school system. Why should they when twice the money can be earned in other occupations and with only a fraction of the stresses involved? This kind of scenario has left some intercity schools undermanned and sometimes so desperate for teachers that the classes are taught by people not qualified in the materials and whose basic educational credentials and core competencies are otherwise suspect.
President Bush promises not to leave "even one child behind" in his commitment to address the problems of education in America. This is certainly a worthy goal so far as it applies to giving every child a fair and reasonable chance to earn a credible passing grade. However, if the public schools are going to sustain high contemporary standards, then it must be accepted that not every child is going to succeed in earning a high school diploma. In so doing, we must also accept that some kids are socially irredeemable enough in one way or another that they don't belong in the public school system and must be removed. Also, the public school system can no longer afford to be super sensitive to cultural differences. Regardless of how a given child might be challenged by their racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic background, they are still going to have stand up and deliver academically (in English) or get left behind.
In parallel, we need to allow the legitimate educational authorities in this nation set empirically sound standards for course curriculum, content, and test performance. And then the front line teachers must be given the authority, legal protections, and support required to hold the line. That also means giving them protection from politically biased school boards and PTA meddling in the service of factional interests. In regard to the latter, part of the dearly needed housecleaning involves all the factional interests that cumulatively help to degrade the public school's ability to educate. This means strict enforcement of English as the official classroom language, including rejection of all ethnically motivated perversions. It also means rejecting biblicalism and it's offspring along with any other factional influence that detracts from the school's focus on core educational curriculum. And where the issue of "erosion of traditional values" is concerned, perhaps a strengthening of curriculum in the areas of American Government and Constitutional Law is most truly in order (Article) (Article). First and foremost, this should include doing something about a constitutionally destructive Pledge of Allegiance which has been in effect since 1954. (Restore the Pledge Petition)