Born again voucher booster

Church & State, Mar 2003 by Leaming, Jeremy

In His New Budget Proposal, President Bush Resurrects Push For Voucher Aid To Religious Education

Three days after his inauguration, President George W. Bush outlined his administration's policy on school choice.

Speaking at a Jan. 23, 2001, briefing on education, Bush told reporters, "None of us at the federal government should try to impose a school voucher plan on states and local jurisdictions. That's not the prerogative of the federal government, as far as I am concerned." That was then. This is now.

In its proposed budget released in early February, the Bush administration earmarked $75 million dollars for voucher aid to religious and other private schools. The federal funds would be used to create "pilot" voucher programs in seven or eight cities. And administration officials indicated that they will move forward with the voucher programs regardless of what local government leaders think.

For an administration that has in recent times advocated for states' rights, the change in tone is dramatic.

Bush is currently leaning heavily on cities and states to fall in line with his plans to funnel more tax dollars to religiously run schools (as well as religiously operated social services). Those supportive of federal involvement in state issues are chagrinned, to say the least, at Bush's apparently limited conversion to federalism.

During his run for the presidency, Bush spoke fleetingly of his fondness for the idea of providing certain students with tax-supported vouchers to attend religious schools. Pundits and party loyalists theorized that Bush downplayed his support of vouchers because polls showed lukewarm support for them, courts looked unfavorably upon them and citizens all across the country had consistently turned them down in voter referenda. Additionally, Bush was seeking a national victory and in need of as many middle-of-the-road voters as possible. Vouchers have always been and remain a divisive point within the electorate.

Invariably, however, political winds shift and can provide once reproachable goals an opening. That is the situation now surrounding vouchers for religious schools. During the summer, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Ohio's voucher law did not violate the First Amendment's separation of church and state. That ruling, narrow though it was, reignited the charge for vouchers, including Bush's public support of them.

Ironically, Bush's renewed interest in vouchers comes at a time when government surpluses are a thing of the past.

Not only are numerous state governments in the red, struggling to make ends meet, the federal government has squandered surpluses of only a few years ago and is now once again facing out-of-hand deficits. The estimates of state budget deficits, according to The New York Times, forecast "the worst fiscal outlook for states since World War 11." Nine states, The Times reported, have already been forced to reduce spending on elementary and secondary education.

Mounting deficits though are apparently of no great concern to the current administration. Indeed, Bush's budget included no funds to help alleviate the fiscal crises arising in the states. Instead, as noted by The Times as well as numerous other press reports, the administration's budget includes a raft of domestic program cuts.

What is also of no concern to Bush is whether cities, states and citizens support his call for funding religious school tuition.

The Department of Education website indicates that voucher funds would be made available to cities and "communitybased nonprofit organizations." Therefore, if local education officials do not want to issue vouchers for religious schools, federal officials can funnel the money to local nonprofits that in turn can pay for tuition at religious and other private schools.

One of the first victims of the new Bush agenda will apparently be Washington, D.C.

About the same time White House officials sent their budget to Congress, they announced their intent to use a portion of the voucher fund to create a program in the District of Columbia. U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige met with D.C. council members and Mayor Anthony Williams Feb. 6 to discuss the proposal.

Following the meeting, Williams' spokesman Tony Bullock told The Washington Times that "you are not going to see our government participate in a government sponsored voucher program." The paper noted that District residents overwhelmingly rejected voucher-like tuition tax credits in a 1981 referendum and that a 2002 Zogby poll showed that 76 percent of residents opposed vouchers.

Nevertheless, the education department's website included strong language in support of vouchers, proclaiming that a "growing body of evidence shows that providing parents and students with expanded choice options can improve the academic performance of the students."

Dan Langan, a spokesman for the education department, told The Washington Post Feb. 7 that if the D.C. government refused the voucher grant, a "nonprofit organization in the city" would be asked to take the money and implement a voucher program.