A Proposal that Education Vouchers for Public or Parochial Schools

Should Not Be Given

The purpose of this report is to show educational vouchers granted by the government for students to attend private or parochial schools are unnecessary. In recent years, systems of educational vouchers have been proposed in state legislatures throughout the United States so as to improve the education of America, both public and private. In this report, evidence will be offered to refute the belief that educational vouchers are beneficial to schools and prove that they are in fact harmful to the future of education in this country.

In order to understand the pros and cons of the educational voucher system, one must first understand the purpose for creating public schools.

The public school system has proved to be a necessary part of the democratic system of government. Many of the founders of the United States found education a ìmeans of preserving liberty, securing unity, promoting good citizenship, and developing the resources of the land and peopleî (Good 77). Because the United States is a government for the people and by the people, it logically follows that an educated people would lead to a better and more successful government. The founding fathers knew ìthe liberties of the citizen are jeopardized if he does not early acquire the understanding of those rights and the intelligence to maintain themî (Good 82). However, for many years the education of the public was left to parochial and private schools with little interference from government offices.

Originally Americans believed the best way to handle education was to let those who could afford private school pay and those who could not afford private school to attend the ìcharityî schools provided by religious organizations. Unfortunately, many children were left uneducated, or at least insufficiently educated. The inability of private and parochial schools to educate the American populace led to the creation of public education. Under public education, every child would have the opportunity for an equal education in schools maintained and provided by the state governments with funding from tax monies; however, sending children to private or parochial schools was still an option for people who had adequate funds and opportunities.

The privatization of education was first mentioned in a grand scale by Milton Friedman in 1955. He believed competition among schools for funds and students could improve the educational system as a whole (Saks 25). However, the issue was not seriously discussed until the 1980s during the Reagan administration. His administration backed tuition tax credits as a form of the voucher concept which bought the idea of ìschool choiceî to the nation (Saks 25). In 1990 Wisconsin implemented the first publicly funded voucher program for private schools called the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) (Molnar 240). Cleveland, Ohio, became the second school district in the nation to adopt a voucher system (Saks 25). Currently, both school districts are awaiting decisions on appeal to their respective state appellate courts on whether the vouchers can be used at parochial schools as well as private schools. Both school districts have stated they are ready to take the cases to allow vouchers to be used in parochial schools to the United States Supreme Court if necessary. At this time, these are the only two school districts in the nation using the educational voucher system, although there have been many similar measures defeated in other states across the nation.

In recent years there has been increasing disdain for the public school system due to many different reasons. A poll conducted by Phi Delta Kappa shows the many concerns parents have with Americaís school system (Appendix A). According to this poll, parents rank use of drugs, lack of discipline, fighting/violence/gangs, and lack of proper financial support among the biggest problems facing the schools in their communities (Langdon 245-6). From these results it is safe to say the most influential factor for parents advocating school choice is the poor conditions present in todayís inner-city school districts and the slow pace with which the government is responding (Saks 25). Generally these problems are not a major concern of smaller schools, although it is a growing concern in these schools as well. All of these problems can be classified as environmental problems and are not actual problems with the teachers or their methods; however, these problems are disruptive to a studentís learning and lead to a poor education for the students involved. For these reasons 43 percent of the American public feels vouchers could benefit the community by improving the learning environment for students (Langdon 248).

Some critics of the public school system believe part of the problem is the lack of competition among schools for funds and students. There is no incentive for the schools to improve the way they educate students because there is no consequence if the schools perform poorly. Schools do not lose money if students do not learn as much in their school as they do in another school. Under the voucher program, there is an option besides the public school system for families who could not otherwise afford private school.

The one common area of all voucher programs is that public tax money goes directly to parents who can then choose which school they would like their children to attend. The voucher is used to pay the tuition at the school of their choice. Where the proposals differ is in the details. Some plans would allow parents to choose schools only from their local school district, others would let them choose from any school in the state. Another difference is whether vouchers can be used at public schools only, private schools only, or private, parochial, and public schools. Finally, some voucher systems call for limits on income of the families who are allowed to participate in the voucher program (Saks 25). For the purposes of this report, the voucher system discussed will be one modeled after the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.

The reason for choosing MPCP as the focus of this proposal is that it incorporates many of the above possibilities into its program and is actually being used today so the discussion of how it works is not just theory. The solution Milwaukee, Wisconsin, found is income-based, therefore families who make more than a certain amount of money are not able to apply for the vouchers. The idea behind the income-based vouchers is to help the poor and underprivileged students get a chance to attend better schools at little, if any, extra cost. When the program originally began, the vouchers could only be used at surrounding private and public schools; however, the state recently allowed the vouchers to be used at parochial schools as well. The inclusion of parochial schools in MPCP is being litigated at the moment because of possible violation of the principle of the separation of church and state as outlined in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

There are many benefits to be found with the voucher system. These benefits can be classified under two categories for the purpose of this proposal.

As stated in earlier in this proposal, one of the reasons the voucher system is needed is to correct the environmental problems students face in some public schools (especially inner-city schools). Although the voucher system does not address any of the components of the environmental problems as identified by parents, it does remove the students from the problem. Obviously when parents are allowed to choose a school for their child, conscientious parents choose the school that provides the best learning environment possible. By choosing their childrenís schools, parents gain control over the people with whom their children study and learn. Therefore, even children in poor sections of town or from dangerous neighborhoods would have the same opportunities as children from upper class neighborhoods (Pierard 262). The voucher system would level the playing field and open doors that were once shut.

A study entitled ìThe Effectiveness of School Choice in Milwaukee: A Secondary Analysis of Data from the Programís Evaluationî was performed by Jay Greene, Paul Peterson, and Jiangtao Du to show the effectiveness of the voucher system in place in Milwaukee. In their study, the authors claimed that children who remained in the MPCP for at least three years ìsubstantiallyî outperformed students who applied but did not get in to the program (Molnar 241). To be exact, the reading scores were 3 to 5 percentile points higher, and the math scores were 5 to 12 percentile points higher on standardized tests than students who were not accepted in the program (Saks 26). This report was released in the summer of 1996. On August 14, 1996, Greene and Peterson printed an editorial in the Wall Street Journal which further illustrated the success of the MPCP. They said if the results they were reporting with the group in Milwaukee were reproducible, the voucher system ìcould close the gap between white and minority test scores by at least a third, possibly by more than halfî (Molnar 241). By allowing the poorer families a chance to send their children to better schools, the test scores, and therefore the education of these students, showed improvement over the other students who were not given the same opportunity.

Although the benefits of the voucher system seem great, they are not truly as promising as the previous statements sound. There are many problems with the system both in purpose and implementation. Though it is intended to benefit the American society as a whole, it is actually detrimental to the foundation of the United States and to the cultural diversity of America.

Some information not included in the study by Greene, Peterson, and Du which is, in fact, helpful to understanding the bias of the study is that Peterson had previously written an essay titled ìMonopoly and Competition in American Educationî in 1990 (Molnar 241). In it he compared school choice supporters to ìa small band of Jedi attackersî who would ìfight the unified might of Death Star forces led by Darth Vader whose intellectual capacity has been corrupted by the urge for complete hegemonyî (Molnar 241). Petersonís statement calls into question the objectivity of the research, although it does not necessarily mean his study on the effectiveness of the MPCP is invalid--just suspicious.

Upon further examination, the study is greatly discredited. Peterson claimed his group of students not in the program were chosen at random, when in fact they were the students who had been rejected from the program. In other words, the private schools had specifically not accepted these students (Saks 26). Also, he only examined three of the twelve schools participating in the program. The most disconcerting fact of the study was that the students in the public schools and those in the private schools were dissimilar ìespecially on the parent education level, one of the most significant out-of-school influences on achievement research has ever foundî (Saks 27). According to the American Federation of Teachers, if the studentsí mothersí education is allowed for in the study, the advantage of the students in the MPCP becomes nonexistent (Saks 27). In truth, the study has not proved the MPCP to be a successful program.

There are many reasons the educational voucher system is doomed to fail. The most basic of these is that it does not address the real problem with todayís educational system. According to the same Phi Delta Kappa study used to identify the biggest concerns of parents about their children's education, teachers do not see the same problems. The problems teachers identified as most significant include lack of proper financial support, lack of discipline, pupilsí lack of interest/attitudes/ truancy, and lack of family structure/problems of home life (See Appendix B). Ironically, the biggest problem teachers see in the public schools is parentsí lack of support/interest--one of the categories that only 2 percent of the public see as a problem (Langdon 245-6). Perhaps this is the most interesting evidence to invalidate the voucher system as a solution to the problem; the public is identifying the wrong problem and ignoring the real one. Communities who do not support the schools are not going to have good schools regardless of where the children go to school within the community. The most successful schools are the ones who receive the support of the community. Donating time, money, energy, and skills to schools will improve every school no matter where the school is located. As one teacher put it, ìParents with money will be able to pay more for their kids to be with kids just like them. Or parents who care [will] search for their choice school, and [we] are left with an entire school of kids whose parents didnít care enough to make the choiceî (Langdon 247-8). Is it surprising that only 20 percent of teachers would support a proposal to allow parents to send their children to any school they choose?

Because there are only 6 million students currently enrolled in private and parochial schools, as opposed to 46 million students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools, there would obviously not be enough private schools to accommodate all of the students (Tirozzi 64). Even with the new schools which will be founded as a result of the increased demand created with the voucher system, there will still be children attending the public schools. What happens to the children who are left behind in the public schools?

Public schools are required by law to meet the needs of the entire community. Public schools cannot discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, and physical and mental disabilities (Pierard 261). Some other requirements include teacher certification, curriculum, quality of facilities, and environmental protections. Private and parochial schools are not bound by policies that control the public schools, which is what makes private schools appealing to some parents; however, the policies have been established to ensure everyone receives an equal education. Meeting the requirements will cost money, so if the private schools can eliminate the costly students, money can be spent on better teaching staff and tools. The students who are harder to educate and care for will draw money away from educational improvements, so there is no benefit to private and parochial schools to accept these ìmore expensiveî students.

If private schools are not required to follow rules similar to those of the public schools under the voucher system, as they are not required to do now, the result is obvious. The condition of the public schools, which would continue to educate the majority of Americans, would steadily worsen with the implementation of the voucher system. The voucher system will continue to divide our society along the lines of race, social class, and religion; the result of the system will threaten the diversity and equality America has been trying to reach. ìIf achieved, this alternative system will inevitably reproduce and legally sanction the doctrine of ëseparate but equalí on a grand scaleî (Molnar 243).

The voucher system should not be used because it truly does not benefit the masses. The system solves none of the problems the public schools face, instead it creates new problems. Listening to the students and teachers who are directly involved with the schools seems a much better idea. People should work together to improve the existing public school system: however, the most important thing people can do to improve schools is show that they care. The American public needs to show its children that education is important--through more funding for programs and salaries and time spent with children helping them learn both in and out of the classroom setting. According to Gerald Tirozzi (43):

(The Biggest Problems the Public Schools Face According to Parents)

Data taken from ìThe Third Phi Delta Kappa Poll of Teachersí Attitudes Toward the Public Schools.î Phi Delta Kappan. Nov. 1996: 245-46.

Appendix B

(The Biggest Problems the Public Schools Face According to Teachers)

Data taken from ìThe Third Phi Delta Kappa Poll of Teachersí Attitudes Toward the Public Schools.î Phi Delta Kappan. Nov. 1996: 245-46.

Works Cited