VOUCHERS: THE PARENT TRAP

Who will have the fundamental right of educating children: parents or politicians?

Virtually every candidate for political office claims that if we elect him, he will fix public education, and since 92% of our children attend public schools, such political promises appeal to almost everyone. Those political promises have led to a multitude of unproven education fads introduced in public school classrooms, but there is one idea that has yet to overcome political opposition: vouchers, a.k.a. school choice. There are two major sources of opposition for the idea: teachers' unions who are afraid of losing part of their funding and those who hold to free market ideals and oppose government regulations.

Voucher supporters claim they would create competition for the public schools and thereby improve them. But columnist Charlie Reese sums it up nicely: "Government schools cannot compete in any sense of the word. They are government schools, creatures of law and politics. Faculty, its pay, and the curricula are determined not by the schools, but by politicians, bureaucrats and, in some cases judges. To state that public schools can compete with private schools is like saying a bronze statue of a horse can compete with a live one."

In reality, public funding would destroy private education. Saralee Rhoades outlines why in The Freeman, a newsletter published by The Foundation for Economic Education:

Private schools will become dependent on this new source of money and in time unable to exist without it. Private schools electing to safeguard their freedoms, not taking advantage of "free" money, will not be able to compete. When the only schools left are government schools, is there any assurance that the quality of public schooling will not precipitously decline as it has before? The resultant government monopoly will preclude any form of competitive standards. Costs will skyrocket as offices are set up nationwide to monitor the expenditure of government funds, protect students from exploitation, and expand services as further needs arise. Eventually the aim will be the maintenance of the program, not the education of children. Compliance with government policy and maintenance of the status quo will assume greater and greater importance, as more workers become dependent on government-subsidized salaries. The bottom line is that government cannot fix the educational problem because government is the problem.

Some insist that voucher legislation can be written to protect private schools. Chester Finn, chief architect of the National Goals (presented in former President Bush's America 2000 plan and President Clinton's Goals 2000) and a voucher advocate refutes the claim. "Some to be sure, like to think they can have it both ways; i.e. can obtain aid without saddling themselves with unacceptable forms of regulation. But most acknowledge the general applicability of the old adage that he who pays the piper calls the tune, and are more or less resigned to amalgamating or choosing between assistance or autonomy."

Texas voucher supporters believe that if legislation denies federal funds, then private schools would be free from government strings. In 1995, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 1 and created the Texas Workforce Commission that have brought about systemic reforms required by federal education laws, Goals 2000 and School-to-Work. The Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) is being restructured to come into compliance with the rewrite of Texas' essential elements into performance standards/outcomes called Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills-all an outgrowth of the federal programs. It is logical that if private and public schools are answerable to the same bureaucracies, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the Texas Comptroller, then they will both be controlled by the federal government programs.

State regulation is guaranteed. Governor George W. Bush has said, "I believe we ought to try a pilot voucher program that is tied to our accountability system [the TAAS test]." Rather than public schools being forced to compete in an education market place with private schools, the private schools would be forced to conform to the same outcome-based standards and performance-based tests prescribed for every public school by both federal and state governments. Ronald Trowbridge, vice-president for external programs and communications at Hillsdale College in Michigan, wrote in The Wall Street Journal "If government vouchers are extended to private primary and secondary schools, truly private schools in five, 10, 15 or 20 years will become virtually extinct."

Courts have broadened government control over private schools that take government funds. The infamous Grove City College vs. Bell case decided that even though the GI bill funds went directly to a student rather than a school, it came under federal regulations. The all-male Virginia Military Institute was forced to admit women or forgo state funding. And Liberty University dropped their religious worship requirement in order to retain their state tuition assistance grants. George Roche, president of Hillsdale College writes, "What is especially galling about this (attitude of 'you take our money, we own you') is that federal money was forcibly extracted from us in the first place. When they 'give' some of it back, it comes not with strings attached, but chains." Hillsdale is the only college in the U.S. that refuses even the GI Bill because of its federal tentacles of control.

The bottom line is: Vouchers would cause the demise of private schools because they cannot compete with what some parents will perceive as "free" schools. And government regulation will force them to be like public schools.

Vouchers would grant the government the "right" to collect your money and redistribute it to the more needy or dictate where and how you spend it by granting you a voucher. Collecting taxes and redistributing them is socialism.

Vouchers will cause private school tuition to escalate as witnessed by the sharp increase in public college tuition after the GI Bill was passed in 1943. Fewer parents would be able to afford true private schools.

Vouchers would politicize private schools the same way as public schools. Dr. Gary North, president of The Institute for Christian Economics, describes how voters/parents have consented to a system that rewards educational bureaucrats rather than serving parents as consumers with legal authority over their children. The chief losers of the political scheme are the students.

Vouchers would methodically expunge religion from private school curricula. George Bernard Shaw of The Socialist Fabian Society of England frankly stated, "Nothing will more quickly destroy independent Christian schools than state aid; their freedom and independence will soon be compromised, and before long their faith."

The only voucher bill filed in the Texas legislature as I write this report is HB 709 by Rep. Mike Krusee (R-Round Rock). The bill would mandate that: parents notify the state for a scholarship; the voucher "entitlement" be paid to the school instead of to the parent; the private schools be accredited by a private organization recognized by the Commissioner of Education and report to him on the school's performance on the academic excellence indicators; the private school not refuse to enroll a child on the basis of religion or academic achievement; and that the private school must certify to the Texas Comptroller all admissions regulations.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Teel Bivins (R-Amarillo), also will sponsor legislation calling for a limited voucher program. He says private schools that participate must be accredited and must test their students with the TAAS. This would make the once "private" school economically, spiritually and educationally beholden to the state.

Government vouchers sound good at first, but when we measure whether they will bring more liberty or more government, they certainly grow government. And it is uncanny that conservatives would encourage government to reduce welfare and support a reduction in the size of government, but advocate school vouchers. By cycling taxpayers' money through government hands, then back to parents, the voucher program would create a new category of people who will become dependent upon government largess. We cannot mouth limited government while our actions promote limitless government.

How long before the government requires certain accrediation of schools accepting vouchers? What about teacher training? What about hiring practices and civil rights?...

If a school is failing, parents simply won't send their kids there. If they do, it's their choice.
If they don't like something about a school, they don't have to go there. They can choose another.
For example; Christian schools don't have to allow Sodomites. That's their religious views. If sodomites don't like it, they can go to the public schools they've created or open their own. . It's a choice.
Look at homeschools. Parents, who are not accredited, are kicking the public schools butt! Accredation is an NEA thing. They invented that, not the parents. Actually, nonaccreditated parents are doing a better job.

This doesn't address the key counterargument as stated above which rests on the comparison between food stamps and vouchers. According to this view, the introduction of food stamps has not paved the way for more governmental regulation of supermarkets (other than those regulations which already exist) because the food stamps are under the control of consumers, not the provider.

Hence, according to this view, the introduction of vouchers will not create a *greater* danger of governmental regulation of schools for the same reason because these too will be under the control of consumers.

To be sure, government regulates the schools....but this was not caused by vouchers. The key issue is whether vouchers would lead to *more* regulation.

Those two cases you cite were about colleges and federal money and civil rights issues. As others pointed out, it fails to address tax money collected by a county authority which is given back to an individual to use at a school of choice.

Also, as I point out, the private school would simply not accept voucher students if any government thinks it can force changes in policies.

First of all, replace "accreditation" for my error in spelling.

Secondly, do you really think that private schools will be able to withstand suits brought by teachers who believe there has been discrimination in hiring practices at a govenment funded (and, therefore, no longer) private school?

And, how will private schools be able to maintain private school admissions standards? Won't they be "discriminating" if they don't take a student with "special needs" or with a "disciplinary record"?

And, if, as is the case in Florida, the students are required to take the state "assessment," who really controls the curriculum?

All states take fed-ed funds. In return, all states have agreed to fed-ed education goals. The states require local districts to conform with state law and regulation which is written to conform to federal law and regulation.

As a wise school administrator said to me on this topic: "If you take the king's shilling, you become the king's man."

Vouchers will break the monopoly of the NEA.

It is one thing to control public schools when you have the support of the union, and the administrators. It is another is the private schools fight the attempt to control them.

Take the money away from the unions, you take the money away from the poloticians. Once the unions no longer have a lock on all of that money, their hold over the poloticians will weaken.

This problem did not develop overnight, nor will it be corrected overnight. Vouchers are a start.

To be sure, government regulates the schools....but this was not caused by vouchers. The key issue is whether vouchers would lead to *more* regulation.

Exactly. Its noy like private schools are "unregulated". They can't refuse to admit someone based upon their skin color, and they couldn't make rules like no lunch is allowed at school or something. We wont see accrediting of teachers. We will not see the government try to tell religious schools they cant say homosexuality is a sin. We will not see the government tell private schools they have to accept this person or that one, or that they can not expell this person.

There are stacks and stacks of legal decisions supporting the rights of privaet schools to have much tougher policies than public schools. Vouchers will not change this. The school I went to could expell anyone for any reason really, if they wanted. Usually, you were given the option of leaving if there was a problem with you. But the students were there because their parents wanted them there. All students were answerable to their parents. The student handbook even had a rule that said you could be expelled for any action the school deemed "immoral". Common incidents involved pregnancy or sex, drinking or drug parties or a generally rebelious atitude.

do you really think that private schools will be able to withstand suits brought by teachers who believe there has been discrimination in hiring practices at a govenment funded (and, therefore, no longer) private school?

Your premise is false. They are not government funded. See my post #19. The student is not a conduit for government funds. The funds have been rebated to the parent, the parent is making a free choice as to how the parents 'ed dollars' get spent.

Your argument that he who pays the piper, calls the tune is persuasive but your example is that of a government subsidy to providers (namely state governments), not to the consumers (namely parents) as would be case under vouchers. Again, I don't necessarily disagree with you but you have yet to provide a strong counterargument to this specific point as I outlined in my two previous posts.

See post #15.

The Supreme Court and the Congress have already spoken on the issue.

It doesn't matter whether the school gets the money or the student brings the money, the effect is government power over the institution.

I think you are not quite seeing this correctly. You do not become "government funded" simply by accepting one student with a voucher. No court will see it that way.

And, how will private schools be able to maintain private school admissions standards? Won't they be "discriminating" if they don't take a student with "special needs" or with a "disciplinary record"?

This simply just will not happen. Like I said, most private schools will probably consult an attorney before they even accept a voucher student. If the school "changed" some rules because of whatever, then it would go broke, because parents would just take their kids out and send them to another private school that didn't accept voucher students.

If ANY court rules that once a private school accepts vouchers, its no longer private accept that they are privately funded, then no private school will accept vouchers. Its that simple. You are forgeting that it is the school's choice to take vouchers. No court will rule that private schools have to accept voucher students. There is as much basis for that as there would be for saying private companies have to hire any former government employee.

There is no political traction to regulate private schools through voucher funding because private schools perform better than public schools.

And we are all forgetting one important fact: Most politicians send their children to private schools. They would not vote for something that would hurt the schools they send their children to. Its that simple.

So what we're really talking about is just spending more money to send send kids to government controlled schools, right? :-)

Actually, no, on two counts:
1) It's not more money, it's the same money taxed away that's been rebated back to parents
2) There is no government control. It is parents spending their money as they choose.

The key distinction is that parents are exercising there choice as to how to spend their money (rebated through vouchers), not the school or government. The student is not a conduit for government funds in this case. The funds belong to the parent, not the government.

The funds are tax dollars, yours and mine, comingled. Once those dollars leave our hands, the money becomes government funds.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.