Children can't wait for educational reform - motivations for choosing public or parochial education for children

National Catholic Reporter, Nov 7, 1997 by Joe Feuerherd

My brother won't leave New York City.

"The public schools are too good," said he, the father of a sophomore at the Bronx School of Science and a senior at the New York School for the Performing Arts.

Another brother -- father of three school-age children in a progressive Midwestern city -- sends his kids to Catholic school because the citizenry's enlightened views have not translated into quality public education. My sister's family chose a different route, moving from one Long Island community to another, largely because of the difference in quality between the public school districts.

My wife and I, meanwhile, removed our three grade school children from the public school across the street from our suburban Maryland house to a Catholic school because the quality of the education, and the environment in which it was transmitted, stank.

Four families, four choices.

These are the practical and pragmatic decisions parents make every day about their children's education. But you would not know it from reading the papers. Not since New York's powerful Francis Cardinal Spellman took on New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller over state aid to parochial schools (Spellman won at the time, getting textbooks and transportation funding for private school students) has the debate over education been so heated. The reason is simple: The baby boomlet, the children of the baby boomers, are coming of age. And somebody has to educate them. But who? And who pays?

As NCR has reported, the debate over vouchers and equitable educational funding is complex. The ideologues are out in full force. Americans United for Separation of Church and State (originally formed as the Catholic-bashing Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State to combat Spellman's call for public support of parochial education), the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers and their many adherents within the Democratic Party argue that support for non-public schools is unconstitutional and unwise.

The nutty right uses education as a means to further demonize President Clinton, whose advocacy of "national standards" and "outcomes-based education" (whatever that is) is right up there on his list of sins with Vince Foster conspiracies and Paula Jones. More mainstream Republicans see voucher proposals as a means to recapture some of the middle-class suburban votes Clinton and Gore have so cleverly co-opted.

Opponents of voucher proposals contend that public support for church-sponsored education violates the Constitution's prohibition on the state establishment of religion. In fact, it is relatively simple to design a Constitutionally acceptable system of public assistance to families who want to send their kids to parochial and private schools -- just give the funds directly to families and let them spend it where they choose, whether that be the local public school, the local Catholic school, a secular humanist school, a Muslim school, you name it. This voucher plan meets Constitutional muster, especially given the make-up of the current Supreme Court, which ultimately decides such things.

But is this desirable? Is it good public policy?

The critics, on solid ground here, charge that a voucher proposal will drain needed funding from public education, particularly inner-city schools, at a time when such institutions need support, not abandonment. Just recently, President Clinton, no slouch on the school reform issue, has promised to veto legislation funding the District of Columbia on just these grounds, if Republicans succeed in including vouchers for 2,000 students in the legislation.

Put yourself, for a moment, in the place of the single mother in Southeast Washington with a school-aged child. Where would you stand on this proposal? With a few notable exceptions, the D.C. public schools are a mess. Simply awful. Unsafe, educationally bankrupt and administratively incompetent. No one with a choice -- including the Clintons -- would voluntarily send his or her child to such institutions.

What is the response of the pro-public school ideologues to this family dilemma? Give it time and with the proper resources schools will improve. Work with us to make the schools better.

But to an eight-year-old who can't read, a 12-year-old who can't add, and a 16-year-old who doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, one year of education lost can be lost forever.

That mother in southeast Washington would make the same choice my siblings and their spouses have made, the one my wife and I have made: the best education and environment for their child. Our kids have only one school life. We have to give them the best education and environment while we can.