"Do you remember the failed 1994 California school voucher initiative which, nevertheless, inspired a coven of witches to propose their own private school in order to take advantage of public handouts?" Gene Garman, School Vouchers essay, 1995.
Parents do not send children to parochial and private schools simply because they want better education. The primary purpose of most church schools, for example, is to provide religious education--whether Adventist, Baptist, Catholic, Jewish, or Muslim.
If you want to see the United States of America as balkanized as Europe, support the school voucher or "choice" proposition (parents already have choice; what voucher and tax credit proponents want is public money). Ever increasing economic, political, racial, and religious segregation is unavoidable through a school voucher plan because it will allow parents to send children, at public expense, to the school of the parents prejudice--economic, political, racial, or religious.Public schools are the nursery of democracy and provide a fertile ground for producing harmony among children and students from all economic, political, racial, and religious backgrounds. Financing private schools with public money will facilitate economic, political, racial, and religious segregation, as well as conflict, will undermine public education, and will foster anarchy--educational and social.
America does not need to subsidize and encourage division in its society by allowing the private school lobby greater access to the public purse, whether directly or indirectly. Private schools would not only get increasingly huge sums of money from the public treasury they would also continue to have the advantage of generous contributions from their special interest supporters.
In 1785 James Madison wrote one of the most important statements ever penned in regard to political and religious freedom. It was called a "Memorial and Remonstrance"--against religious assessments. Madison's statement and protest was an objection to a bill in the Virginia legislature to use public tax money for the support of teachers of the Christian religion. Three sentences from his "Remonstrance" (Papers, 8:303):
"At least let warning be taken at the first fruits of the threatened innovation. The very appearance of the Bill has transformed that 'Christian forbearance, love and charity,' . . . into animosities and jealousies, which may not soon be appeased. What mischiefs may not be dreaded, should this enemy to the public quiet be armed with the force of law?"
In 1920 the Netherlands passed legislation for public subsidy of private schools. By 1959 only 28 percent of primary students were in public schools (Dutch School System, 1960, p. 25). In The Politics of Accommodation (1968, p. 1), Arend Lijphart writes: "The Netherlands . . . is characterized by an extraordinary degree of social cleavage. Deep religious and class divisions separate isolated, and self-contained population groups. . . . Each group has its own ideology and its own political organizations: political parties, labor unions, employers' associations, farmers' groups, newspapers, radio and television organizations, and schools--from kindergarten to university."
Can the above happen in America? Ever heard of Kiryas Joel? Did you know that in the USA the Council of Islamic Schools maintains 108 elementary schools, five high schools, and two colleges? Do you remember the failed 1994 California school voucher initiative which, nevertheless, inspired a coven of witches to propose their own private school in order to take advantage of public handouts? All such schools would, presumably, be included in any fair voucher program. A July 1993 AP report quotes state Department of Education spokesman William L. Rukeyser saying he thought witches could qualify because "private schools are one of the last great unregulated industries in California."
In January 1993 the Cato Institute's David Boaz wrote nationally distributed columns advocating the use of public money (vouchers) for "a Catholic school, an independent minority-run school, or many other choices." A Catholic school is a Roman Catholic Church school; but, what is an independent minority-run school? Would that be a school run by the KKK, Black Muslims, or Queer Nation? Or, would such groups be included in "many other choices"?
The school voucher plan is not good public policy for America. Furthermore, it is the responsibility of government to regulate that which it finances or subsidizes. If private schools want to stay private, they should not feed at the public trough. As a graduate of two private church schools, I have no objection to private schools; but, I do object to the use of public tax money for private schools, especially when private schools would not be subject to the same rules as public schools.
The overwhelming majority of private schools in America are church related. Churches and church schools should be supported by voluntary contributions. Tax dollars are not given voluntarily. In 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant said: "Leave the matter of religion to the family, the altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate." (Church, State, and Freedom, 1967, p. 337).
Copyright 1996 Gene Garman
* * * * *Addendum:
The traditional and constitutional American principles of separation between religion and government and of public funds for public institutions are under attack. If the judicial decision is made that the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment requires parochial aid (through the current "discrimination against religion" argument), all sorts of schools will demand their fair share--from white supremacists to black supremacists, from communists to fascists to socialists, and from extremists and anarchists of all kinds. If the Court decides that parochial aid is constitutional, how can any school be kept out? On what basis will a group or family calling itself a "school" be denied access to public funds? The Congress or the state would proclaim that only true schools would qualify, but we already allow virtually unregulated home schools (like kids who ride all day in their parents' truck or spend all day at a college library on the Internet). Nevertheless, no objection to public funding of any religion school would provide a legal challenge. Therefore, if the school voucher or tax credit idea for students at private schools ever becomes universal law, schools from the "licentious left" to the "radical right"--from all across the religious and political spectrum--will receive public money in the name of "religion." The so-called "Religious Right" actually promotes this predictable fragmentation of American society as "parental freedom of choice." Just like the growth and abuse of welfare, schools of all sorts will choose to suck up to that additional pap on the federal sow or state nanny. Of course, the debate is not about freedom to exercise religion or choose private schools (parents are already free to choose private schools); the debate is about access to public money and about maintaining the obvious exception (discrimination) which the First Amendment commands in regard to government support of "religion." In contrast to the many functions which government is allowed to promote and fund, "religion" is not to be established by law or by government at any level. In 1947 the Supreme Court of the United States said, "no tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion" (Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. at 15). Or, as was said in 1963, "What may not be done directly may not be done indirectly lest the Establishment Clause become a mockery" (Abington v. Schempp, 374 U.S. at 230).
But perhaps the "Religious Right" has something else in mind when it refers to "freedom." Perhaps the type of "freedom" it ultimately has in mind is the freedom to use government for the purpose of imposing religion upon all Americans. Efforts throughout America by religion activists to gain control of school boards, state boards of education, state legislatures, and the Congress are obvious. Most "choice" advocates have already gone along with the scrapping of the First Amendment's religion clauses anyway. Why not simply get rid of the rest of that document and let "religion" rule? Besides, it was written 200 years ago as a Constitution which never mentions God, Christianity, or the Bible. And,
"At least let warning be taken at the first fruits of the threatened innovation....What mischiefs may not be dreaded, should this enemy to the public quiet be armed with the force of a law?" (James Madison, 1785 "Memorial and Remonstrance" against a bill in Virginia which would have provided tax money for support of teachers of the Christian religion; see the book America's Real Religion, p. 17).
Copyright 1998 Gene Garman
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