Catholic
Education Church is at the center of voucher debate
By JOHN ALLEN
Special to the National Catholic Reporter
Meet the two faces of the push for
public funding for private schools in America.
The first belongs to Pilar Gonzales. Gonzales and her family
struggle to make ends meet in their working-class Milwaukee home.
"We light candles a lot of the time instead of using electricity.
We cook one huge meal for the week to avoid using the stove very often," she
said. Yet, Gonzales pays to send her three school-aged children to Catholic
schools instead of to the city's free public schools.
Leigha, 16, attends Pius High School, while Andres, 10, and
Bianca, 8, are enrolled at St. Lawrence Elementary.
Horrified by the crumbling public school system in Milwaukee,
Gonzales wanted something better for her children. "The public schools are
overcrowded and unsafe," she said. "I have to do right by my kids. ... This is
their future."
Vouchers, a system through which parents could receive public
funds to help pay private school tuition, are a very practical matter for Pilar
Gonzales. If vouchers would help her kids stay in safer, more caring schools,
she's for them.
The second face of the voucher movement belongs to Michael Joyce,
president of the Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee, from which position he acts
as godfather of a conservative philanthropic movement that aims to use private
dollars to influence public debates. Joyce is widely considered a major figure
in Republican intellectual circles, pushing an antigovernment agenda he calls
"new citizenship."
"Over time, citizenship has come to be understood as voting and
then standing aside while the experts in government take over," Joyce said. "We
need to change that."
With its $24 million in annual grants, the Bradley Foundation is a
leading donor to PAVE, a private scholarship program that gives half-tuition
grants to 4,400 students attending private schools in Milwaukee, including
Gonzales' three children. The Bradley Foundation also provides funds to the
American Enterprise Institute, American Spectator magazine, the Heritage
Foundation, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and scores of other
conservative causes.
While Joyce is adamant that vouchers will help the poor, for him
the debate is much bigger than the fate of a few families. Ultimately, it's
about the proper role of government -- a role Joyce and his fellow devotees of
the free market say ought to be minimal. His goal is for market mechanisms to
replace public policy in determining the allocation of educational
resources.
These two centers of support -- one a social justice concern for
the urban poor, the other an ideological belief in free markets and limited
government -- are driving the voucher crusade forward. On the other side of the
political fence are the public school system and its defenders, especially the
teachers' unions.
The battle is being fought in state and federal legislatures,
courtrooms and the media. All signs suggest it is heating up.
The Catholic church is caught squarely in the middle. With its
network of more than 8,000 private elementary and secondary schools, the church
would be the largest beneficiary of vouchers. That makes it a major player in
the debate at all levels of government.
Church leadership
The educational leadership of the church has made its support for
vouchers clear. As it positions itself in the political fray, however, the
church faces a very basic question of allegiance. Is its primary loyalty with
Gonzales and the urban poor? If so, in addition to pressing for vouchers for
its inner-city schools, will the church also call openly and forcefully for the
resuscitation of the public system, recognizing that under any scenario, public
schools will continue to educate the bulk of America's poor children? Will the
church be guided on this issue by self-interest or by the common good?
Or, will the adversarial dynamics of the voucher debate place the
church in a tacit alliance with the free-market conservative vanguard, which
sees schooling as another commodity awaiting its turn on the auction block?
Many observers believe the answers to those questions will determine a great
deal, not only about the future of the voucher movement, but also about the
role the Catholic church plays in American public life.
Few dispute the appalling condition of many inner-city public
schools. Consider these statistics from the Center for Education Reform, a
leading critic of the public system:
- In Philadelphia, less than 10 percent of the district's public
elementary schools meet or exceed the national reading norm.
- In Detroit, the public high school graduation rate is less than
30 percent.
- In Cleveland, more than 25 percent of high school seniors
failed to pass a required 9th grade proficiency test -- and that's only 35
percent of the original 9th grade class. The rest had either failed, dropped
out or been placed in special education classes.
- In Toledo, Ohio, one in eight high school students misses more
than 50 days of school.
"There's no question that traditional neighborhood schools in
urban areas do not serve their populations well," said Steve Kest of ACORN, an
association of low-income community groups in New York City. "Kids come out of
these schools significantly behind their counterparts in suburban areas."
The problems of inner-city education are staggering: dilapidated
facilities, crowded classrooms, demoralized teachers, outdated textbooks and
communities ravaged by crime and drugs.
America's school finance system exacerbates the problem. Despite
the best efforts of state legislatures and courts to mandate some degree of
equalization in funding, wide disparities still exist between the resources in
urban and suburban districts. While suburban schools prosper from a strong
local tax base, urban schools decline. It's a cycle that has many poor families
understandably desperate for alternatives.
None of this is to suggest that inner-city education is uniformly
poor. There are remarkable success stories -- Harlem's Central Park East
schools, for example, which have been the subject of intense national study.
Decades of research, however, have settled on one sobering conclusion: As long
as urban schools lack the resources available to their suburban counterparts,
success will remain a heroic exception rather than the norm.
The issue is money
"If money is not the issue, I'd like to know why the rich are
spending so much on their suburban school systems," said Jonathan Kozol, who
has written extensively on the condition of urban public schools. "In the New
York area, the per-pupil expenses are $6,000 in the Bronx, but $16,000 in Great
Neck, Long Island. They spend that much because, even allowing for the
inevitable inefficiencies in any large system, you get what you pay for."
Given the terrible condition of inner-city public schools, many
poor families look to Catholic alternatives. All the evidence suggests they're
wise to do so. Studies differ on how to explain the higher test scores and
greater levels of parental satisfaction associated with inner-city Catholic
schools, but virtually everyone concedes that, for whatever reason, urban
Catholic schools often provide a better education for poor children.
Why do Catholic schools succeed? A host of factors is involved:
size, with Catholic elementary schools serving populations of 200-400, while
public schools routinely serve over 1,000; selectivity, as Catholic schools can
pick and choose their students, while public ones have to take everyone; the
greater academic rigor of many Catholic schools; parental involvement; and the
spirit of community that is part of the Catholic belief system.
"You have to taste it to know the tremendous difference our
schools make," said Sister of Notre Dame Phyllis Cook, principal of St.
Columbkille's Elementary School in South-Central Los Angeles.
However one accounts for it, the argument that inner-city children
are often better educated, safer and more cared for in Catholic schools seems
convincing. This argument holds, of course, as long as the frame of reference
is the inner city. In America's suburbs, well-funded public school systems
perform every bit as well, and in some cases better, than the private
competition.
"In urban areas, it's clear that kids in Catholic schools do
better than in the public schools. The more affluent the public school is, the
better it does," said Leonard DeFiore, president of the National Catholic
Educational Association.
For people in the inner city, then, vouchers amount to an
educational lifeline. These communities want what is best for their children,
something they feel wealthier families already have.
"It's not right that just because you have more money, you have
more opportunity," said Val Johnson, like Pilar Gonzales a mother of three
children in Milwaukee Catholic schools.
For the first face of the voucher movement -- the face of the
inner city poor, denied the same educational opportunity that more affluent
communities enjoy -- vouchers amount to simple justice.
If only it were that simple. The history of vouchers, however,
suggests a much more complex political and social dynamic.
For conservative theorists, two lines of thought on vouchers
intersect. One is a fear that a latent totalitarianism lurks behind
state-controlled education. Another is the conviction that public monopolies
are economically inefficient and should be replaced by market forces. These two
ideas, both central to the conservative world-view, help explain the passion
that often animates debate.
The first idea -- the notion that public education is simply
another term for mind control by the state -- is advanced by Stephen Arons, a
law professor at the University of Massachusetts. Arons first articulated this
view in 1976 in an influential article on that topic in the Harvard
Education Review.
There, Arons, who believes that compulsory public schooling
violates freedom of conscience, cited the 19th century English philosopher John
Stuart Mill, who wrote that public schooling "is a mere contrivance for molding
people to be exactly like one another; and as the mold in which it cast them is
that which pleases the predominant power in government ... in proportion as it
is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind."
Mill's fear of "despotism over the mind" speaks especially to the
religious right, which tends to suspect public schools of inculcating an
antireligious "secular humanism." This wing of the conservative movement sees
vouchers as an opportunity to soften the distinction between church and state.
Arons said in an interview, "People need the right to choose schools that are
consistent with their own value system."
Linked in the '50s
The heart of the conservative case against public schooling,
however, is economic. Conservatives believe that the free market is a better
way to determine the allocation of goods in a society than government policy.
The first conservative thinker to explicitly link the free-market philosophy to
vouchers was Milton Friedman, who called for a privatized education system in
the 1950s. That dream is very much alive today in the voucher movement.
Michael Joyce of the Bradley Foundation said, "The choices of
parents should be the principal factor in determining educational
arrangements." From this standpoint, consumer preference, rather than public
policy, should decide which schools survive and which fail.
The ultimate aim of conservative voucher proponents is the
deconstruction of the "government monopoly" on schooling altogether. "The state
has an interest in an educated citizenry, but it doesn't follow that the sole
method of accomplishing this end is the government school," Joyce said. "We can
have public education through vehicles other than public schools."
For the second face of the voucher movement, then, the needs of
the urban poor help make the case, but the issue itself is much larger. It's
about a belief in private choices over public policy. It represents an
instinctive hostility to claims that the needs of the community can sometimes
override the freedom of the individual -- a degree of individualism that should
pose troubling questions for Catholics familiar with the church's social
teaching.
Fringe issue no more
Vouchers have come of age politically. Long considered a fringe
issue, today 15 states are considering voucher proposals, according to the
Education Commission for the States. Senate Republicans have made vouchers for
low-income families one of the components of their major legislative
initiative, SB 1.
Within the conservative intellectual elite, there is a clear sense
that the time for vouchers has arrived. Writing in the March 10 Weekly
Standard, William Kristol claims that "a conservative agenda of parental
choice and local control holds greater promise than almost anyone in Washington
realizes." Kristol, by the way, was paid by the Bradley Foundation in the early
1990s to help develop their agenda for the decade.
To date, however, only two municipalities actually have voucher
programs in which public dollars subsidize low-income students in private
schools -- Cleveland and Milwaukee. Both programs include Catholic schools, and
both have been challenged in court. So far, Cleveland's program -- only a year
old -- has been upheld, while Milwaukee's has not. Both are on appeal. Studies
have reached different conclusions about the Milwaukee experiment.
At this point, therefore, real-life experience is still
insufficient to draw any sweeping conclusions about voucher programs. For the
time being, the debate will continue to swirl around two largely hypothetical
questions: Are vouchers constitutional? Will they work?
Opponents of vouchers argue that such programs amount to an
establishment of religion -- even though parents choose the schools -- because
taxpayer dollars flow to institutions with an explicitly religious purpose.
Voucher proponents disagree. "I can go to a Catholic hospital using Medicare,
and nobody says the government has just recognized Catholicism," said Jeanne
Allen of the Center for Education Reform.
Competing legal arguments aside, most observers expect the present
Supreme Court to approve some form of public support for religious schools. "It
will be a close vote, but there's ample evidence that the door might be opening
wider," said Fritz Steiger, president of CEO America, a group that supports the
growing number of privately funded scholarship programs around the country for
poor families wanting to send their children to private schools.
Catholic school capacity
With the constitutional issue out of the way, the debate will come
to rest on whether or not vouchers work. If success means greater freedom of
choice for some low-income parents, the obvious answer is yes. If it means a
better education for all children, the answer is much more problematic.
Consider the capacity of existing private schools. The Catholic
education association's DeFiore estimates that existing Catholic schools
overall might be able to add five percent to the student population. That means
just 130,000 students, since Catholic schools, K-12, presently serve a little
over 2.6 million students. Given that the enrollment in New York City public
schools alone is over a million, it's easy to see that the vast majority of
students in America are not suddenly going to be transported out of the public
system under a voucher plan.
What about the emergence of new private schools? The limited
Milwaukee experience suggests it may not be as simple as it sounds. A handful
of schools created there specifically to educate voucher students has already
folded. In any event, it's unlikely that a sufficient number of schools will
crop up to put much of a statistical dent in public school enrollment.
The real issue in the voucher debate, therefore, is the fate of
the majority of poor children who will remain in public schools, no matter what
happens. Advocates for vouchers believe they'll be better off, as public
schools retool to compete, using resources more wisely and being more
responsive to the needs of parents. Opponents contend that vouchers will
further siphon resources, both fiscal and human, away from institutions already
bleeding.
The real impact of vouchers on public education is likely to be
less dramatic than either side is willing to admit in the heat of political
debate. Peter Cookson, a professor at Teachers College at Columbia University,
said, "Private alternatives to public education may seem convincing on paper,
but in reality they are no solution at all."
"Vouchers are likely to mean a great deal for those who get them,
and relatively little for everyone else," said Professor Jeffrey Henig of
George Washington University.
The Catholic position
Where does all this leave the church? For one thing, a solid case
can be made for its position in favor of vouchers for poor families based on
the consensus that Catholic schools in the inner city serve poor communities
better than public schools. At the same time, however, the nagging question
remains: What about those left behind?
Kozol, whose books on urban education such as Savage
Inequalities and Amazing Grace have earned him a closet full of
honorary degrees, displays only one on his wall -- a "doctor of crayons" degree
from the kindergarten class at St. Augustine's Elementary School in the South
Bronx. Kozol, who is Jewish, says the degree hangs right next to his portrait
of Thomas Merton.
"I would do anything I could for these inner-city Catholic
schools," he said. "They make an incredible contribution." At the same time,
Kozol said, the stakes are much bigger than the well-being of the small number
of additional children who could be accommodated in Catholic schools. "The
question is, What is the greatest possible social justice? Is it to take care
of my child, or to take care of all children?" said Kozol.
Despite an honest difference of opinion between Catholic and
public educators over vouchers, observers suggest the church, as a major force
in the vouchers debate, could advance the interests of all poor children if it
could also help make the case for support of the public system.
"Catholic schools and public schools share a common purpose of
educating the young people of a community," Cookson said. "What we need is an
alliance between the two."
Catholic educators in urban areas understand that the best
interests of poor children are represented by support for public education.
Wilma Elbouhnini, principal of Verbum Dei High School in the Watts section of
Los Angeles, said "The people I serve are very poor. We need to educate all the
children of the community, no matter which school they attend. ... We [Catholic
and public schools] have the same goal, the same struggle ... the same
commitment to this community," Elbouhnini said.
A key component of affirming the church's support for public
education, these observers believe, is a clear distinction between the Catholic
view and the free-market campaign for privatization.
"On the right there is this libertarian notion of government that
is dead-set against Catholic social teaching," said John Coleman, professor of
Religion and Society at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif. "It's
very important to distinguish our case for vouchers from this free-market
vision. Otherwise, we get caught in the same dilemma as on the abortion issue,
where we share that issue with the religious right, but virtually nothing
else."
Strange bedfellows
On this issue, however, the church does not speak with one voice.
Some seem untroubled by the public alliance between the church and
privatization advocates. "The two are quite compatible," Milwaukee's Norris
said. "We may not agree on every issue, but then, politics makes strange
bedfellows."
Other leaders, however, are more wary of affiliation with
free-market forces. "We have to examine the market model from a gospel
perspective," said Sr. Dale McDonald, public policy associate with the National
Catholic Educational Association. "We have to articulate that we're not buying
into privatization, into a survival of the fittest approach. We probably need
to say this more clearly."
The need for clarity is all the more acute, observers say, because
the vouchers represent a potential financial windfall for Catholic schools, and
the perception of self-interest that prospect creates. "Catholics need to make
clear that they are not looking to cash in on the failure of the public
system," Henig of George Washington University said.
As the voucher debate unfolds, then, the Catholic church faces a
difficult juggling act. The church's commitment to the education of the urban
poor gives it clear moral authority to support public policy measures that
would allow more children to benefit from that ministry. At the same time, the
church must beware of whose interests it serves.
If the church seeks to bring "good news to the poor," it's
unlikely it will come in the form of a free market where educational
opportunity goes to the highest bidder.
National Catholic Reporter, March 28,
1997
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