Opening the Schoolhouse Door / Vouchers Have Overcome ~ John Fund

The Wall Street Journal. editorial page ^ | June 28, 2002 | John H. Fund

[Elle Bee]

Politicians can't stop school choice now.

Yesterday's broadly written Supreme Court ruling upholding a school choice program in Cleveland has been a long time coming. It was back in 1983 that the Education Department issued its "Nation at Risk" report warning of "a rising tide of mediocrity" in the schools. Two months later, the Supreme Court opened a first crack in the door of school choice when it declared that states could allow taxpayers with children in private schools to deduct tuition and other expenses from state income taxes. Yesterday's ruling represented the high court's final and complete retreat from the suspicion it once displayed towards school choice and the role religious schools can play in it.

[Elle Bee]

Vouchers Have Overcome

Free at last, private school choice is free at last.

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday struck the greatest blow for equal public education since Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. In the process it also stripped away the last Constitutional and moral figleaf from those who want to keep minority kids trapped in failing public schools.

Had Zelman v. Simmons-Harris gone the other way, the education establishment would have declared the death of school vouchers. But yesterday's 5-4 court majority upheld a Cleveland program giving tax dollars for parents to use at any participating school: public, private or parochial.

The legal issue itself was narrow but momentous: Whether the Cleveland program offended the First Amendment's Establishment Clause simply because 96% of the children receiving vouchers ended up in religious schools. The Court answered with a resounding "No." Writing for the majority, Chief Justice William Rehnquist explained that because the parents, and not the government, decided where these tuition dollars ended up, this is a "program of true private choice."

This should sweep away for good the objection that school choice violates the separation of church and state. That fog of illegitimacy has been thrown up to stop voucher plans everywhere. But as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor pointed out in her concurring opinion, state money flows to religious institutions throughout our society. Pell grants go to college students who use them to attend Yeshiva University, and Medicaid payments go to Catholic hospitals. As long as the individual decides where the money goes, the government is not promoting one religion over another.

The importance of this decision can be judged by the outrage of voucher opponents. This includes the predictions of Social Armageddon, and the dripping mistrust for religion that was all too obvious in the dissents by Justices Stephen Breyer and David Souter. (Memo to President Bush: As you contemplate your own Supreme Court appointments, remember that Justice Souter was your father's biggest mistake.)

But the broader victory in Zelman is moral, especially in the educational opportunity it opens up. Cleveland officials didn't initiate a voucher plan because they read a think-tank study. They resorted to vouchers as part of a state takeover of a school system facing a crisis that one Ohio state auditor called "perhaps unprecedented in the history of American education."

Zelman's majority opinion marshals the dismal pre-voucher statistics: only 1 out of 10 Cleveland ninth-graders able to pass a basic proficiency exam, two-thirds of high school students dropping out before graduation, a district that could not meet even one of the 18 state standards for minimal performance. Even the four dissenting justices conceded that "the record indicates that the schools are failing to serve their objective" and that if anything could excuse vouchers, this might be it.

In 1954, Linda Brown's right to a decent education was threatened by a public education system that kept her out of a successful white school. Today, voucher supporters understand that hundreds of thousands of children just like Miss Brown are threatened by a system that is once again separate but unequal.

Justice Clarence Thomas made this point in his concurrence yesterday: "While the romanticized ideal of universal public education resonates with the cognoscenti who oppose vouchers, poor urban families just want the best education for their children, who will certainly need it to function in our high-tech and advanced society."

Americans of means already have that choice. If they live in the cities, they send their kids to private schools or move to suburbs where the public schools still aim for achievement. Vouchers are a way of giving poor kids that same opportunity, and if religious schools provide it, so be it.

Zelman, in that sense, is a vindication for those of us who have stumped for vouchers for many years. That includes economist Milton Friedman, who argued against the public school monopoly as long ago as 1955; Ronald Reagan, the first modern President to support them; and especially Polly Williams, the Rosa Parks of vouchers, who defied the establishment to make school choice a reality in Milwaukee. In both Cleveland and Milwaukee, the record is that vouchers don't endanger public education. To the contrary, they offer education hope for millions of kids who would otherwise be left behind as surely as Linda Brown would have been in 1954.

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision didn't solve the urgent problem of failing urban public schools. That is now the duty of politicians, who we hope will take a cue from the Zelman case. But it removes one of the last excuses liberals, unions and the bureaucracy have used for refusing even to try.

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[Grendelgrey]

....I like this ruling . I think Vouchers are a way out of the mediocraty foisted upon American school kids. Competition will in the end change Public schools for the better. The NEA has ceased being an advocate for Children and only worries to keep as many dues paying members sitting fat and happy as possible. I believe 95% plus teachers are good and decent ,but their Union is wallowing in Agenda politics. Public Schools Teach Agenda Issues,Indoctrinating young minds with PC social issues and a thin crust of knowledge.

How will the next generation of Black and Hispanic kids ever break out of the cycle of dependancy,if forced to labor under the yoke of dumbed down Social Engineering?

Politicaly here is a Chance for Republicans to ernestly reach out to both minorities.Blacks especialy have been pushing for this,even against the wishes of the great "I am Somebody "Jesse Jack$on.....

[meenie]

After this 5-4 decision, it is obvious what the importance of trying to regain the Senate is to the future of the country. Education, abortion, states rights, federalism all can be swayed one way or the other by one or two justices.

They have the power to turn this country around to a more moral, ethical society or the power to turn it into a third world socialist backwater. Let's hope that the former happens.

Although I critize the Republicans for being too eager to abandon their principles, reality suggests that we need to suffer a small increment of incompetence to achieve a bigger objective of stopping the drive to a Soviet system in this country.

[Paulie]

"Politicaly here is a Chance for Republicans to ernestly reach out to both minorities"

I agree. They should go all out this time; no holes barred and no punches pulled. If they would only just TELL IT LIKE IT IS, a majority of black and hispanic votes would gravitate toward the "R" lever, and the Dems would be history.

[Slyfox]

The only thing that will screw up the idea of vouchers is when they start attaching requirements on how the money is spent. And you can bet your bottom dollar that if the NEA has anything to say about it requirements will be attached.

[GailA]

btt

[LS]

This ruling is PRECISELY why I was almost alone on this board saying that the Ed Bill which everyone saw as such a "sellout" but which contains a SMALL VOUCHER PROVISION is completely now opens the door for vouchers.

Thank you Pres. Bush. Once the door is open, you cannot close it.

[tdadams]

Pell grants go to college students who use them to attend Yeshiva University, and Medicaid payments go to Catholic hospitals. As long as the individual decides where the money goes, the government is not promoting one religion over another.

This has always seemed so obvious and common sense, I couldn't see the Supreme Court ruling any other way.

[hchutch]

And it looks like Bush and Paige will push for the rest of it IF they can get the Senate back.

[fight_truth_decay]

Vouchers are used in Maine and Vermont..to students who live in a town without a schoool..However, $2500 still keeps the majority of kids from the Private schools that our politicians often attended...Andover..Groton etc..those hit the $20,000 mark now..Maine also gives each 7th and 8th grade student a laptop of their own for classroom work..Maine also has the highest number of graduating students in the Country..and alot comes down to parent involvement...not $$$$$

[justanotherfreeper]

You should read Steven and Breyer's dissent for real, earsplitting paranoia on "religious indoctrination." Then to get the taste of liberal idiocy out of your mouth, read Thomas' concurring opinion. Zelman v Simmon-Harris

[lepton]

The NEA has ceased being an advocate for Children

The NEA was never an advocate for the children - at least not on purpose.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

This decision casts doubt on the Grove City case, which declared that Ted Kennedy is in charge of any college whose students received federal financial aid (Grove City College responded by cutting its tuition and forbidding, on pain of expulsion, any student to even apply for federal aid). How different is that from Clevland, in which the First Amendment was applied to local rather than federal student tuition payment?

After this 5-4 decision, it is obvious what the importance of trying to regain the Senate is to the future of the country.

I'm surprised to have heard so little on that point. We thought the Dems were obstructionist before Cleveland; now if Dubbya has a SCOTUS vacancy to fill it'll be the start of WWIII in the Senate. Even if the Republicans were to regain nominal control of the Senate first . . .

But the pubbies had better give people the word that

your kids' education is important to Republicans, and
your kids' school administration is important to the Democrats.