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A BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL
No on vouchers

By 0, 2/20/2002

The US Supreme Court is hearing arguments today in a landmark Ohio case
involving school vouchers. We believe voucher programs that funnel public
tax dollars to private and parochial schools are needlessly divisive and
violate constitutional prohibitions against government support of
religion. Still, signals from justices in recent years make voucher
proponents optimistic. We hope the court will hew to earlier statements of
constitutional principle and flatly reject the Ohio program.

In 1995 the Ohio Legislature passed a law granting parents in Cleveland a
$2,250 voucher, redeemable at private, parochial, or public suburban
schools. Ostensibly designed to promote parental choice, the program in
practice overwhelmingly benefits religious education. Fully 99 percent of
the students receiving the vouchers use them for religious schools; the
suburban systems refused to participate, and private school tuitions are
too high for the vouchers to be of much use.

Also contrary to its intentions, the program did not help poor parents
mired in low-quality urban schools find a way out. A review of the program
by an Ohio nonprofit group found that only 20 percent of the voucher
students transferred from the public schools; parents merely used the
money to subsidize a choice they had already made.

Proponents argue that the vouchers are only indirect aid to religious
schools and therefore pass constitutional muster. But this legal nicety
cannot obscure the fact that $11 million a year in government money is
going to religious instruction in Cleveland.

Voucher programs do not enhance educational equality. Private and
parochial schools are already advantaged over public schools because they
need not take all comers. They can refuse children with special needs,
learning disabilities, behavioral problems, language difficulties, or who
come from abusive homes. Meanwhile, private schools are free of the
accountability increasingly - and properly - applied to public schools.

It is ironic that President Bush, whose administration filed a brief on
behalf of the Ohio program, would not apply to voucher schools the same
annual testing and standards-based curriculum required of public schools
in his new education law.

Vouchers also could use public money to support exclusionary hiring
practices. Religious schools need not hire anyone who disagrees with their
sectarian teachings; if they accept public money, will that need to
change? This threatened loss of autonomy led many religious groups that
stood to benefit from the president's faith-based initiative for social
service programs to opt out.

There are better ways to promote competition and choice - the charter
school movement is thriving - without religious proselytizing. America
wisely keeps government out of that business, and it should stay out.

This story ran on page A14 of the Boston Globe on 2/20/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.