Passing the buck

Court should make a ruling on voucher system

Money for public schools can continue to be diverted towards private schools. That is what the Supreme Court decided on Monday when it resolved, eight to one, not to hear a challenge to Wisconsin's school voucher program that provides low-income families with credit of up to $5,000 per child toward tuition for private schools.

While the decision does not set any national precedent, it still gives credence to a disturbing national trend. On their face, voucher programs sound like an excellent opportunity for families whose public schools have failed them. But the reality is that vouchers have yet to produce any benefit that outweighs the harms of taking money away from public schools whose resources are already meager enough.

Independent annual evaluations of the voucher program in Milwaukee have shown that there is no significant increase in learning for students who received vouchers compared to their counterparts in public schools. Private schools are not inherently better than public ones - last year, two private schools in Milwaukee that had students who utilized vouchers shut down in the middle of the school year.

Private schools can often be elitist and have the ability to accept or deny students as they please. Statistics have shown that on average, private schools with religious affiliations typically accept only one out of every three applicants. Students who lack the grades, test scores or intellectual ability to perform well at a private school - those who need special resources the most - will remain essentially abandoned in a financially crippled school district. The purpose of public education is to give every American child an adequate scholastic background, not only the smartest or most well-behaved students.

Vouchers can never cover all of the expenses of sending a child to a private school either. Total tuition costs often exceed the value of the voucher. Additionally, when poor families choose out-of-the-way private schools (as necessity often dictates), transportation costs can be prohibitive.

The number of families who use their vouchers to send their children to parochial schools is significant. So much money is going to nonsectarian institutions that the Wisconsin branch of the American Civil Liberties Union opposes the decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court to uphold the state's voucher policy on grounds that it violates the separation of church and state. When the court ruled in early June of this year, it said that school vouchers did not contradict the First Amendment because the purpose of the program is to advance secular interests and that any benefit to religious institutions would be purely incidental. But when public money is being diverted away from public schools and redirected toward religious schools, it is easy to see why the Supreme Court should have taken the opportunity to set a national legal precedent on this issue.

Presumably, the Supreme Court's decision Monday was in accordance with the tradition of waiting for several lower courts to make rulings on constitutional questions before it steps in to clarify legal disputes. But such a process could take years. Meanwhile, proponents of voucher programs in several states, including Michigan, have been emboldened. The practical and constitutional consequences of voucher programs are far too dire for the Court to ignore.

11-12-98