Schools of thought - school choice movement - includes related article on Separation of School & State Alliance

Reason, Jan, 1997 by Rick Henderson

School choice advocates consider the inclusion of religious schools crucial. Vouchers would give low-income parents the wherewithal to gain complete control over the upbringing of their children, including the option to take advantage of a religious education. Almost 80 percent of the nation's private schools are religiously based; excluding them from voucher plans would reduce the competitive pressures on public schools. And religious schools are often heavily subsidized by church members, so they can offer much lower tuitions than their secular counterparts.

To date, means-tested voucher programs have been limited to a small number of students in a few cities. Few existing private schools have large numbers of vacancies. If a larger plan went into effect, would it offer enough money to entice new school operators into the education marketplace?

While nothing is certain, the voucher programs now in place would cover tuition costs for most private schools in the country. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that about two-thirds of the nation's private schools charged tuitions of $2,500 or less in the 1993-1994 school year. A March 1996 Cato Institute survey of private-school tuitions by David Boaz and R. Morris Barnett shows that in the four cities surveyed - Indianapolis, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Jersey City - the median private elementary school tuition was between $1,775 (Jersey City) and $3,312 (Atlanta) and the median private high school tuition was between $1,850 (Indianapolis) and $7,200 (San Francisco). Even with vouchers of a relatively modest amount, the Cato authors conclude, "Schools would expand; new schools would be established; some schools might lower their tuition or offer scholarships; new teaching methods would be tested and new technologies employed; and government schools would compete to stay open."

New schools may open. But Friedman is concerned that they would not differ much from the ones already operating - they would certainly not be the pathbreaking institutions that would be created by a new marketplace in commercial schools. Under these circumstances, he fears, a market for commercial "Rolls Royce" schools might never emerge. "Where will the innovations [in education] come from - Rolls Royce schools or McDonald's schools?" he asks.

Mellor and Bolick won't predict what market-based private schools would look like; their goal is to gain legal sanction for the broadest possible application of school choice. Mellor envisions "a dynamic education market in which consumer choices drive the provision of services. We can only speculate on its future shape."

Regulatory Concerns

Over the past quarter century, several opponents of the public-school monopoly have voiced objections to vouchers, fearing that they would lead to additional regulation of private schools. (See sidebar "The Separationists Weigh In," page 34.) Public choice scholar Dwight R. Lee, an economist at the University of Georgia, argues that the political process would inevitably taint any voucher program and allow unions and education bureaucrats to impose new regulations on private schools that accept vouchers. For instance, voucher-accepting schools might have to comply with anti-discrimination laws (a provision in Bob Dole's "opportunity scholarship" proposal), preventing, say, single-sex classrooms or forcing religious schools to separate spiritual instruction from the rest of their curricula.