Will schools ever be free from the chains of state control? - Education

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), March, 2004 by Marie Gryphon, Emily A. Meyer

The dawn of the 20th century saw an escalation in the battle between proponents of educational freedom and activists bent on using the law to restrict flexibility. Efforts to restrict options sprang primarily from a continuing cultural backlash against the large waves of immigrants pouring in from southern Europe and Asia. Like those of the Reconstruction Era, but unlike earlier arrivals, these individuals often were not Protestant. Instead, Jews, Italians, Poles, and others were subject to widespread discrimination.

World War I significantly exacerbated this distrust. This backlash against immigrants--particularly those from Germany--was called nativism, or "100% Americanism." Immigrants were seen as ideologically suspect, thus unreliable supporters of the war effort. National and local organizations routinely investigated individuals and groups deemed hostile to the U.S. action in Europe.

The U.S. Supreme Court, however, effectively defended educational freedom from some of the era's worst assaults, striking down restrictions on teaching foreign languages as well as compelled full-time attendance at public schools.

The demise of these laws at the hands of the Supreme Court marked the beginning of an era in which a safe haven existed in American law for parenting and family life. Not just foreign languages, but any other areas of learning that parents and students wished to pursue now were protected from arbitrary state interference. This proved critically important in years to come, as the state schooling movement gained economic and political clout. The controversy also tied parents' liberty interest in raising children explicitly to freedom of intellectual inquiry and from official orthodoxy. Citizens reaffirmed their right to think differently, and recognized that educational freedom was critical to an intellectually diverse and tolerant society.

Parents fight back

While government control of schooling was ascendant for most of the 20th century, the pendulum recently has begun to swing the other way--back toward parental influence. Flexibility has become more popular with the courts and policymakers.

Opponents of school choice, including the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed the Zelman v. Simmons-Harris case to challenge an Ohio law authorizing a choice program in Cleveland. They claimed, among other things, that it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. However, the Supreme Court, in a five-to-four vote, explained that choice always is constitutional so long as it meets a few clear guidelines demonstrating that parents are offered a "true private choice."

Various states and cities have enacted either voucher or tax credit initiatives in recent years. Milwaukee's Parental Choice Program, established in 1990 and expanded in 1995, distributes vouchers to more than 10,000 students with family incomes at or below 175% of the poverty line. Similarly, the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program gave more than 4,500 low-income students vouchers of up to $2,250 for the 2002-03 academic year.