Voucher vendetta: A heated debate at the high court

Church & State, Mar 2002 by Lynn, Barry W

PERSPECTIVE

Wednesday, February 20, 2002, could turn out to be a momentous day for the history of separation of church and state.

It was the day when the constitutionality of the Cleveland voucher program - now with 99 percent of voucher recipients in private religious schools - was argued before the United States Supreme Court. A decision is expected by late June.

While the justices were inside hearing an unusually long 80 minutes of argument, people were outside in large numbers demonstrating on both sides. Hundreds of pro- and anti-voucher supporters rallied on the sidewalk and across the street with signs, banners and speakers indicating their positions. Many of the advocates were children, supporters of their private schools or their public ones.

Only during abortion cases can I remember this much public activity outside the high court in recent years. Before I went inside to listen to the arguments, I noticed that some of the voucher discussions were getting pretty heated. Police had to move one group across the street for a while when tempers got hotter than expected. By the time the arguments were over, the two sides had pretty much merged back together. Animosities were still high. A group of police officers were donning riot-control gear as I left the area (although no riot actually occurred).

A piece of paper worth $2,250 can sure cause a ruckus. It is because that piece of paper has something to do with religion that the feelings are so strong. Claims of "ultimate truth" often have that effect. When one group thinks it has it and wants everybody else to pay for it, you have a recipe for conflict.

Our country has been spared much of the religious violence that has existed in other nations precisely because the government has not often been willing to take sides in theological disputes and has maintained a position of neutrality in paying for anyone's religious institutions. There are a few sad examples to the contrary, including the notorious Philadelphia "Bible riots" where people were assaulted and churches burned over the issue of whether the Protestant or Catholic version of the scriptures should be read in public schools.

In Cleveland, the largest amount of voucher funding goes to the Roman Catholic school system. Like most other inner-city parishes, Cleveland was having trouble attracting enough Catholics to send their children to the schools there. Many parents moved to the suburbs and found religious or public schools there. Most of the inner-city schools now have very high minority enrollments, and most of those students are not Catholic. This voucher program was designed as a government bailout for those schools.

Here's the problem: Our constitutional system never envisioned having tax-- payers pay to keep religious institutions from failing. If the sermons are bad at the local Baptist church and people start going elsewhere, Baptists wouldn't expect the local governing body to give them some tax funds to make up the shortfall in the collection plate. Why, then, should religious schools get a comparable helping hand from government?

Voucher advocates would say my analogy is unfair. Besides being promoters of the faith, these religious schools are good schools, they argue. It turns out, however, that they aren't better than the public schools in terms of academic performance for children with academic troubles. Even if they were, the right question is how to make sure the public schools do the best job possible. You can't blame the victim for looking pale when you are bleeding him yourself.

Cleveland public schools do not have funds to implement tested and successful programs for "at risk" students because the state has blessed the siphoning off of $11 million from the public school budget. Ohio has also resolutely failed to comply with court orders to fund suburban and inner city schools more comparably and has supported many other financial benefits for private schools throughout the state. Instead of making hard choices, the state chose a gimmick-- vouchers.

I had a chance to be reviled by a number of the parents whose kids are in the Cleveland voucher program at a debate at the libertarian Cato Institute the afternoon before the argument. One mother complained that her daughter had been threatened at a public school. She was delighted to get a voucher to put her daughter in a private school.

Of course, no parent should tolerate such activity at any school, but possibly protecting one child and leaving your neighbor's kids vulnerable can't be the final answer either. At the end of the day, of course you have to be able to say you did everything possible for your family. I said to that mother, though, I think you have to say you did something for other peoples' families too.

In education, that means demanding that public schools work and fighting any group, individual or political force that says otherwise. In some places, that might even mean spending more to make the system work. If that is what it takes, we're past due paying the bill.