Vouchers & the Death of Private Education

Recently I had the privilege of hearing one of my friends allude to his opinion that school vouchers are a good thing to have. Allow me to thoroughly debunk this idea by describing how school vouchers will efficiently annihilate private (and Christian) schools.

For those of you who are shaky on what vouchers are, here’s a summary. The program centers around the idea that one has a right to the best education possible. It also assumes (rightly) that some schools are failing to provide adequate, let alone satisfactory, academic program. Thus, parents of students in these schools blame the schools for their child’s failure and insist that their child be able to attend “better” schools. Hence, the school voucher program. Given that every person must attend school up to a certain age by law (varies by state), the voucher program allows parents to take their money that would be used to pay for their failing school and use it to pay for their schooling elsewhere, public or private.

Before I get to vouchers, I want to challenge the idea that we have a “right” to the best education possible, or even a state-administered education at all. The constitution neglects to mention education. Thus, the responsibility falls on the individual states to decide what to do with education. In essence, states can decide to have nothing to do with education or everything to do with education, but it is their choice and it was never meant to be a federal issue. The point is that we are not guaranteed an education, or even a good education, by the constitution.

Federal involvement in schools, including legislature, court decisions, and the appointment of the Department of Education as a cabinet level position, has yet to reap any benefits. Schools have never rebounded to the level they were at in 1963 as demonstrated by SAT math and verbal scpuores (even after the test was renormed in 1995 to make scores higher). Students leaving our schools today also leave with less knowledge of our country and the values for which it stood. To make matters worse, instead of repealing the unsuccessful attempts the government as made at correcting American education, they reform, either with money, fancy laws that seem noble (No Child Left Behind), or with politicky phrases that lie and try to tell us that we are among the most (and best) educated people in the world. The point of all of this is to show that vouchers were just the next bad federal reform in line.

School vouchers will mark the end of private education (and more importantly, of Christian private education). It is verifiable by any recent study that private schools are better than public schools. While some may debate me on this issue, let it rest to say that students in private schools, at the very least, perform better on the SAT and ACT.[1] When vouchers become a national commodity, parents will opt their children out of “failing” public schools and into superior private schools. Private schools, having an influx of students, will have to, as the cliché puts it, expand or die. Expansion will come in the form of increased teaching staff and administrators, and most importantly, more facilities. To afford these facilities (outside a generous outside donation), private schools will need to obtain loans. As time goes on, more public schools will be abandoned for the promised land of private schools. Private schools will experience a short period of prosperity due to the increased number of schools and students attending them.

Here’s the lynchpin point: Eventually, enough people in power will not welcome the idea of allowing federal/state funds (which is what vouchers are) going into religiously affiliated schools because of its “obvious” breach of church and state.[2] So what will happen? In order to not have federal money going into private, religious institutions, legislators will force schools either to become secular (that is, no longer religiously affiliated) or not accept voucher money. No matter what happens, the schools lose. Either the schools denounce that in which they believe or they die since they would be unable to repay the loans they took out to expand (apart from generous donations).

Here are some counterarguments I know are floating out there:

1. When private, religious schools can no longer accept federal money while remaining true to their faith, they can simply raise the cost of tuition. This is exactly what the people behind vouchers want to happen. Vouchers, proclaiming the right to the best education, also proclaims that this best education also ought to be as cheap as possible. The rising cost of tuition will cause parents to move their children either back to public schools or to another, cheaper, private, voucher-accepting, secular school.

2. Another counterargument will claim that religious private schools can simply drop their religious affiliation but maintain their mode of operations, including expression of faith. The one who argues this point has too much faith in government. Trust me, when federal money pours into recently unaffiliated private schools, the government will earmark it in such a way that no expression of faith on school grounds will be permissible.

Even if these two counterarguments hold true, they still do not get at the overall purpose of vouchers: to make private schools public. It’s taking the better education of the few and giving it away to the many. And we obviously cannot and should not allow this to happen because public education in America has failed us.

Don’t believe me? Our schools today are full of disinterested students from disinterested and often broken families who have lost all sense of purpose in education (and life!) outside the future material wealth they will acquire as a result of them enduring thirteen years of school. Society demands young people of character in its workplaces but fails to acknowledge what exactly good character is. Schools promote a postmodern view of moral relativity, relying on programs such as Values Clarification, which shamelessly admits that there is no Right and that any student’s guess at Right is just as good as the teacher’s. Addicted to the dancing colors of the television and the Internet, students expect to be entertained and amused instead of being instructed in the great subjects of the past. This fact alone has led to an entire shift in educational philosophy from teacher-centered learning to student-discovery “learning.” Not only do students today “discover” their own morality, they also “discover” their own education. Since students are in charge of their own learning, they decide what they will allow themselves to learn based on how it will best serve them in the future, not how much it will better them as American citizens. So the student who wants to learn about the business world will tune out in Western Civilization class and the scientist-to-be will only study enough Shakespeare and Bunyan to perform adequately on the test.

I would almost be so bold as to suggest that all of the ailments of American education can be summarized in one word: Progress. Death to the past and present! We have learned all we need to learn from the past; now is the time to move forward! History isn’t applicable anymore. Only a handful of people ever need to know Mathematics, not me. What does someone writing a book hundreds of years ago have to say to me today; I’ll gather all I need to know from the TV and movies. The morality of my grandfather is not for me; I will create my own! Look at the previous paragraph and try to prove that progress is not tied to each and every of the listed failures of American compulsory schooling.

But that was all just a parenthesis to my main thesis, and that is this: If private schools become public, we will have lost all hope for American education. As just described, public schools have failed us. Why would we want to bring private schools, which are clearly superior, down to the level of public schools, which are failing and deteriorating? This is truly the establishment of equality in its cruelest form: if public schools cannot be made better, then the next best thing is to make private schools worse. And when private schools become increasingly public, its students will inevitably achieve (and become) like public school students.

Though not having done too much research on the matter, I would be inclined to suggest that we ought not to make all private schools public, but make all public schools private. Don’t charge a property tax and keep the government out of education. This means that the government will have to do a lot of repealing, but frankly, it would be quite easy.

There is much more to say on this matter, and I admittedly am not very organized in my argument, but I hope that this at least has made the reader think about the perils of school vouchers. I wish readers will comment on this matter, not so much on my proper bashing of public schools, but rather on the argument of vouchers killing private religious institutions in the long run.

As a postscript, I anticipate someone will point out that I (or they) graduated from public school and do not exhibit all the ill effects of public schools. True; not everyone leaves public school as a monster (massive use of hyperbole). I submit that the best way to combat the ugliness of public schools is with involved parents. In fact, parents ought to be more influential in their child’s education than the schools themselves…but that is another topic.

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[1] Notice the phrase “at the very least.” Better performance on standardized tests is about the last thing I would care about in a school because those tests have a very utilitarian purpose. I use this argument simply because it is the easiest to prove and will enable me to proceed with my argument without the reader arguing that private schools are not necessarily superior to public schools.

[2] It is not a breach of Church and State. The Founding Fathers did not include this phrase in the constitution and allowing money to go into religiously affiliated schools does not constitute a breach of the federal “establishment of religion” clause. Those who think schools, public or private, can have nothing to do with religion should reexamine the constitution before making such a ridiculous claim.

Response: Harvard Initiates the Fall of American Higher Education

Ahoy mates. I've finally received some feedback on something I have written, and as promised, I will defend (or amend) my arguments in light of this response. So here goes:

Story One:
The first source of criticism over my post was as follows:

"You describe multiculturalism as being tolerant, including and granting equality to distinct cultural groups, and then state that it is"obviously wrong." Are you implying that tolerance, inclusion, and equality are wrong?"

There's a lot to chew on in those statements, so I guess I will just clarify my argument in hopes that it will answer the question. What I meant to say explicitly about Multiculturalism is that it is, above all, relativist; Multiculturalism does not believe in truth - in a right and a wrong. But it does have its dogmas, the most prominent of which is tolerance.

Now I know it's difficult to go on the record anywhere and state that I am against tolerance, because that makes me out to be a bigot (and I would like to think that I am not one), but I will say that I am against tolerance in the way that Multiculturalists have perverted the word. Webster's Dictionary defines tolerance as having "sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own." Multiculturalist tolerance goes beyond sympathy and demands acceptance. Multiculturalist thinkers would say that I would be intolerant if I was not fond of a community or culture that based itself upon prostitution, for example. They would require me to believe "Well, if prostitution works for them, then that's fine by me." But I would be demonstrating true, Websterarian tolerance by simply thinking that we should not immediately destroy the society. I am sympathetic towards the people, but I do not agree with their beliefs, just as the Christian is called to hate the sin but not the man.

Multiculturalists are quick to call Christians intolerant because they do not accept other views. But wouldn't Christianity fail as a distinct religion if its members did not all hold to the same virtues? To call Christians intolerant (by their definition of the word) is to call Christians Christian! Or to call Buddhists Buddhist! To be a person with a soul, do you not have to make decisions of right and wrong? For to me, if you are a person who believes in nothing at all, you are worse off than the man who believes in the wrong thing because you at least have made some "moral" decisions in your life.

And this is what the Multiculturalists have done by making the world a cultural smorgasbord: created people with no convictions at all. Sure, they will have opinions on education and politics and economic policy, but they are mere talking heads with no foundation greater than themselves.

As such, in response you another argument you made, we can consider the ideas of other cultures and study them as long as it is not done relativistically. There are things that are right and wrong (such as a society that bases itself on prostitution or exploitation of the poor, etc). It is also important, again, not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and simply denounce those societies because of their sins. I would argue, though, that since we live in America we ought to primarily study American history rather than concern ourselves with history of places we will most likely never have to deal with. Parenthetically, I realize that this opens me up to the counter-argument that "the world is becoming more globalized and soon American history will become the world's history, etc.". I'll save globalization for another day (or days) as it, too, is something I am completely opposed to. If you want to read a book that probably has a lot more wisdom on globalization than I do, read Joseph Pierce's Small is Still Beautiful. Also for a much more detailed argument of Multiculturalism, please read The Disuniting of America by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. as he has a jolly good argument in that book.

The critic also wrote that "The history of America is in fact found in Africa and Latin America and the East, since American citizens come from all over the world." This statement almost refutes itself. The great men of American history did not come from Africa, Latin America or the East, they were from the West (namely, Europe). To my knowledge, none of the Founding Fathers were from these regions and no President has been from those regions. Even so, today's culture is not shaped on culture from those areas.

Admittedly, I do not have a strong response to the critique that Multiculturalism and Scientism are "fruits of Western thinking." I first wanted to say that these ideas are a result of the globalizing trend that is prevalent throughout the world, but by good bud Wendell Berry himself once said, "Global thinking is not possible," so I have to abandon that argument. What I do know is that Multiculturalism and Scientism have ultimately stemmed from Romantacism and the Enlightenment, both time periods which doubted the existence of God and so sought to fill the void with science and reasoning or with human emotion and intuition, both of which, then followed unilaterally, cannot produce a healthy philosophy (or at the very least, for my sake, one that fits with a Christian worldview). But, again, I still cannot escape the fact that these are largely fruits of the West, except by making a familiar argument. The West is what has made America great. I shouldn't have to defend that, but I'll just throw out simpliest example, that of religious freedom. But the West has also produced bad ideas, namely, Multiculturalism, Scientism, Post-Modernism, etc. I cannot, then, fully endorse the West. But I can endorse that which agrees with my convictions, and that I do.

Stories Two and Three:

The critic writes:

As a counter-argument, I guess the ACLU doesn't like the bibles and the courses in the schools because it violates the separation of church and state. And even though the students can choose not to participate, because the state can't play favorites, it would have to allow every religion (even the crazy ones) to give out their writings and potentially have elective courses.

Church and state is a funny issue. Here is all the Constitution says concerning religion and the government:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

I'm sure books have been written about this very statement, but I'll try to keep it to less than a book. The law is simply that the government will not make a law establishing a religion as the official religion of the state. I realize that Court decisions have redefined this by ensuring religious topics are no longer taught in public (federal) schools and trying to extract "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance.

Regardless, one of my professors at school gave me a copy of the Students' Bill of Rights. The Students' Bill of Rights outlines the religious rights guaranteed under constitutional and federal law that students and teachers have while in public schools. The list may surprise you:

1. The Right to meet with other religious students.
   The Equal Access Act allows students the freedom to meet on campus for the purpose of discussing religious issues.
2. The Right to identify your religious beliefs through signs and symbols.
   Students are free to express their beliefs through signs and symbols. (Including Christian t-shirts, etc.)
3. The Right to talk about your religious beliefs on campus.
   Freedom of speech is a fundamental right mandated in the Constitution and does not exclude the school yard.
4. The Right to distribute religious literature on campus.
   Distributing literature on campus may not be restricted simply because it is religious.
5. The Right to pray on campus.
   Students may pray alone or with others so long as it does not disrupt school activities or is not forced on others.
6. The Right to carry or study your Bible on campus.
   The Supreme Court has said that only state directed Bible reading is unconstitutional.
7. The Right to do research papers, speeches, and creative projects with religious themes.
   The First Amendment does not forbid all mention of religion in public schools.
8. The Right to be exempt.
   Students may be exempt from activities and class content that contradict their religious beliefs.
9. The Right to celebrate or study religious holidays on campus.
   Music, art, literature, and drama that have religious themes are permitted as part of the curriculum for school activities if presented in an objective manner as a traditional part of the cultural and religious heritage of the particular holiday.
10. The Right to meet with school officials.
    The First Amendment to the Constitution forbids Congress to make any law that would restrict the right of the people to petition the Government (school officials).

Some places have attempted to legislate laws that would permit teachers and students to further express their religious convictions under the banner that their statements are not the official views of the school district. Here's one example of a town in Fort Bend, Texas.

In short, the church and state debate isn't much of a debate. As long as the governing body (in this case, the school board) does not explicitly affiliate itself with a particular religion, any of the above things are permissible in schools. Both school districts, though they have histories with law suits, still stand today because they have obeyed the law. With the specific example of poor Jane Doe being forced to accept a Bible on school grounds, it is completely legal for this to happen (the only thing that could have been illegal is if she was forced to take it, but that would be awfully difficult to prove).

So when the critic writes: "[the state] would have to allow every religion (even the crazy ones) to give out their writings and potentially have elective courses," he is absolutely correct. But it will never happen because decisions of curriculum (especially curriculum of electives) is created and approved by local school boards and it would be hard to find a community school board that would allow for "crazy religions" to be taught in their schools. As such, Catholic public schools still stand and school districts with Christian-sympathies (though not officially affiliated) continue to teach our students the truths they desperately need to hear.

Thank you for the comment and allowing me to firm up my arguments.