Many American parents are being seduced by the idea of school vouchers. Vouchers have become almost a talisman, a fantasy that will correct everything wrong with the American educational system. And the concept has been gaining significant momentum in recent weeks, propelled anew by the June 10 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of Wisconsin’s voucher program.
The surface appeal of vouchers is apparent: Inner city public schools are failing and parochial schools are seen as a viable alternative. Certainly, Jewish parents who send their children to Jewish schools are not immune from the appeal of voucher programs. Such programs might not only benefit them personally, but also promote Jewish education generally, thereby addressing a legitimate concern about “continuity.”
So why shouldn’t the Jewish community support a voucher program that might simultaneously help address the crisis in public education and benefit American Jews who send their children to Jewish schools?
First and foremost, voucher programs are ill-advised because they pose a profound threat to the separation of church and state, a principle that has long served the best interest of those in the religious minority.
As a Jewish organization, the Anti-Defamation League is devoted to the cause of religious freedom and appreciates the central role religion plays in our society. We recognize that parochial schools have an important mission, but we remain firmly convinced that the state should not be funding their mission, through vouchers or in any other way. Once that line is crossed, not only does the state find itself funding religious indoctrination, but also the sectarian institutions lose their independence. Under these circumstances, religious freedom — including control of the curriculum and the selection of teachers — can no longer be guaranteed. Government aid inevitably comes with strings attached.
Support for the separation of church and state is often misunderstood as hostility to religion. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Religions, including Judaism, have flourished in this country precisely because the government has not interfered. Despite the majority status of Christianity in this country, Jewish children have been able to attend public schools without being confronted with Christian prayers or Christian texts because the First Amendment requires church-state separation. Any Jewish parent who thinks voucher programs will ultimately serve the best interest of the broader American Jewish community or the nation should think twice.
It is true that voucher programs may assist a relatively small percentage of Jewish parents sending their children to day schools or yeshivot. However, it is also true that every voucher program that has been proposed would become politically contentious, prompting competition among different religious groups, and eventually favoring certain majority religious denominations at the expense of others.
Certainly, one result would be that fewer non-Jewish children would meet or interact with Jewish children in public schools, fewer would learn about religions other than Christianity and fewer still would understand why Jews take offense when America is described as a “Christian nation.”
Jewish communities in other countries where state aid is provided for religious education have benefited in the narrow pocketbook sense, but they have suffered in a broader sense. First, the societal perception typically is that they are out of the mainstream, and second, they are clearly more subject to the whims of the religious majority for government largesse upon which they become dependent. Ultimately, under such circumstances, their religious freedom is diminished.
It is also a mistake to believe that vouchers can solve the crisis in public schools. To the contrary, they carry within them seeds of the destruction of public education, particularly in America’s inner cities. Channeling significant taxpayer dollars out of the public school system will deprive the public schools of the opportunity to reform and rebuild themselves, prompting a further decline in urban public education. Those parents able to remove their children will do so, leaving behind only the least motivated and most frustrated, contributing even further to a downward spiral.
Public schools, universally available to all American children, have historically performed a vital function in this nation’s racially, ethnically, religiously and culturally diverse democracy. These schools have been a unifying and equalizing force, enabling our children to develop a common set of values and to learn the basics of the American political process. While many inner city public schools undoubtedly need reform, the concept of public education remains sound.
Private and parochial schools, while they serve a valuable and important function, are no substitute for public schools, first and foremost because they are not open to every child. They are only open to those whose parents have the ability to pay (a $2,000 voucher, by itself, is often not sufficient) or those who have a specific talent, belong to a certain religious group or meet certain academic standards.
As a consequence, their broad impact is to fragment and divide, rather than to unify. Furthermore, voucher programs invariably have detrimental consequences for those children unable or unwilling to take advantage of them.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a commonly heard cliché, but its corollary is what causes concern here. Many Americans have adopted an attitude toward public schools that could be summed up as, “If it’s broken, fix it any way you can.”
No question there are real problems with public education in the United States. However, as with other “quick fixes,” vouchers ultimately do not “fix” the problem, but only aggravate it, and threaten the separation of church and state as well. Not only are they constitutionally problematic, they are also bad public policy.