EDITORIAL Vouchers no panacea for Catholic
schools
In a 1997 symposium at Columbia University on vouchers (government
programs that offer parents public money to send their children to private
schools), Bishop James McHugh of Camden, N.J., said the following:
In order to have someone express the interest of the
Catholic church and Catholic schools, you could have invited any bishop in the
United States. Any one of us would have said the same thing. We all have the
same interest -- we are unequivocally supportive of a voucher system that will
benefit parents, children and all schools but will include (in the all
schools) Catholic schools as well.
McHughs assertion of an unequivocal consensus among the
bishops in favor of vouchers cannot help but seem a bit hasty in light of
comments made by Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Curry of Los Angeles in Erik
Gunns story about Milwaukees voucher program.
Its not that Curry opposes vouchers, but he clearly worries
about their impact. Currys argument (drawing on his background as a
scholar of church/state relations) is that in order to take public money,
Catholic schools will eventually have to treat religion as something separable
from their secular education programs. The secular components could be publicly
funded, while the religious instruction would remain a church
responsibility.
By and large, Catholic education leaders deny this will happen
under vouchers. They argue that parents want the schools to maintain their
religious identity, giving them a powerful incentive not to compromise.
Yet the principle that schools have distinguishable religious and
secular components is embodied in the opt-out provision of the
Milwaukee law, which allows parents to excuse their children from religious
activities. The provision has not yet been tested, but if pushed it would force
Catholic schools to decide whats religious about what they do and what
isnt.
As Curry points out, this may be a viable model -- offering a
largely secular educational experience with some religious elements around the
edges. Yet Catholic educational leaders argue in other contexts that religion
is all-pervasive in Catholic schools, that they exist primarily in order to
promote the faith. They cant have it both ways, Curry says, and voucher
plans sooner or later will force them to choose.
Curry says that when hes explained his concern to other
bishops he finds it resonates with many of them, cutting across the usual
ideological divides.
Curry and McHugh should not be set in opposition, as if they
represent opposite poles of the voucher debate. Yet, one wishes that McHugh and
others, in their eagerness to embrace public funding, would listen more
carefully to Currys doubts. Perhaps they should slow down the lobbying
long enough to hold a really thoughtful national conversation about whether
this is the road for Catholic schools to go.
Gunns reporting also shows that religious schools in
Milwaukee are facing a host of thorny questions about whether they must obey
civil rights laws. Will Catholic schools, for example, face lawsuits about
discrimination in the hiring and promotion of homosexuals? Will Catholic
schools be obligated to serve students with special needs?
The lack of clarity on such questions is another indicator that
Catholic leaders may need to think more carefully about the consequences of
accepting public funding.
It is ironic that at a moment when Catholic colleges are engaged
in soul-searching about whether their religious identity has been compromised
by adopting secular models and taking public funding, Catholic education at the
K-12 level seems to be moving in just that direction.
Perhaps thats the right decision. But there are some hard
questions out there, and we should be grateful to Curry and others for raising
them. Lets hope they get a hearing.
National Catholic Reporter, March 26,
1999
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