The word "voucher" is the education hot button of today's education wars. Virtually everyone has an opinion either adamantly for or adamantly against vouchers. Florida legislators brawl over the issue while individuals and groups argue 'the merits and demerits of vouchers. They will create competition and accountability in the wasteful, monopolistic public education system; they will divert desperately-needed funding. from the financially strapped but valiantly struggling public education system; they will drive up the cost of education; they will drive down the cost of education; they will benefit primarily' the achieving middle- and upper~ income white students; they will benefit primarily the lower achieving minority and lower-income students; they are constitutional; they are unconstitutional. Somewhere in this cacophony of arguments lies the truth. As a home schooler, I do not care one way or the other about vouchers and do not have a vested interest in how the argument shapes up nor in what validity or invalidity underpins those arguments. I believe in the truth, however, and I believe people should examine the issue for themselves, which is what I decided to do. These are my findings presented, I hope, with as much clear-eyed honesty as possible.

As the quality of public education has deteriorated, even while the cost has risen, the call for vouchers has become more insistent. But, is either of these two assertions true? Defenders of public education insist that public education is not in fact in decline-that it is, in fact, improving. The perceived decline, they argue, stems from the fact that "many more poor students, minority students, and students from the bottom three-fifths of their class are taking the SAT than in the past" thereby bringing down the aggregate SAT scores for the nation ("Are Public Schools in Decline?" authorship uncredited, Separation of Church and State Organization). This statement is undeniably true. More students are in fact taking the SAT. Given the truth of this statement, it stands to reason that in terms of numbers of students performing well on the SAT, that number would increase at least a little in the face of a larger testing population. Even if that number did not actually increase either proportionally or in absolute terms, it would surely not drop in absolute terms even if it dropped in proportional terms. But, surprisingly, it does drop, not only in proportional terms, which could be explained by the larger test population, but in absolute terms as well, which is a little harder to explain away ("What Would a School Voucher Buy? The Real Cost of Private Schools," David Boaz and R. Morris Barrett, Briefing Paper #25, Cato Institute).

According to Boaz and Barrett, in 1972, 2817 students scored above 750 on the SAT verbal test, and 116,630 scored above 600. In 1994, despite the larger absolute number tested, only 1438 students scored above 750 on the verbal test of the SAT, a drop in absolute numbers of almost 50 per cent. 79,606 students scored above 600, again a huge drop not only in percentages but in absolute terms as well. This means that the larger number of students taking the SAT is an irrelevancy in assessing the academic health of our public schools. While it is a fact that more students are taking the SAT, it is also a fact that fewer students are doing as well on it as in the past, both in terms of proportion and in absolute numbers. One can pretty safely but sadly conclude that the quality of public education is indeed on the decline, despite protests to the contrary.

Given that the public schools are in fact producing, in real numbers, fewer academically prepared students than in the past, could this decline be due to the chronic underfunding of public education? Have we created our public education crisis by failing to adequately fund public education? According to Boaz and Barrett, since World War II, inflation-adjusted spending per student in the public education system has increased approximately 40 per cent per decade in inflation-adjusted dollars, doubling every 20 years. Now, this is not "has increased 40 per cent per decade," but has increased 40 per cent per decade in inflation-adjusted dollars. This means that if in 1950, you made $10,000, under the spending history of public education, in 1990 you could revisit 1950 and find your salary, in real dollars, is no longer $10,000 but $40,000. You would indeed be enormously wealthy, as apparently is our public education system today-unless, of  course, you spend poorly or are simply insatiable. The question then arises, "Is there any such thing as enough funding for our public education system, and if there is such a concept, who gets to define exactly what 'enough' is?" Is it possible to appropriate enough funding to public education if public educators control the definition of "enough"?

Boaz and Barrett note that, "The evidence is overwhelming that America's government schools are overcentralized, bureaucratic behemoths. The number of school districts plunged-from 101,382 in 194546 to 40,520 in 1959-60 to

14,881 in 1993-94-- and the number of parents and student~in each district rose dramatically during the same period of time." On its face, this suggests a more efficient system eliminating duplicative administrative functions, leaner and meaner, so to speak. However, as the number of districts fell, the number of administrators rose by 500 per cent between 1960 and

1984. Boaz and Barrett go on to state that the number of teachers and principals grew a paltry 57 per cent and 79 per cent, respectively, over the same period. These data give new meaning to the phrase "top heavy."

Are the public schools underfunded? Assuming that one believes there is a reasonable theoretical limit to the appropriation of funds that should go to education, assuming that one believes the word "enough" has some real world applicability, our public schools are not underfunded by any stretch of the imagination. Are the public schools prudent shepherds of their massive wealth?  Hardly, when administrative staffing can increase at 10 times the rate of instructional staffing. Would vouchers divert funds from the public education system? Yes, and this would be a good thing. The public education system has proven itself a bottomless pit of patronage and waste.

Voucher opponents assert that vouchers will artificially drive up the cost of private education. They also assert that vouchers will primarily benefit middle- and upper-income families rather than lower-income and minority families. This assertion is based on the supposition that vouchers will not cover the full tuition fees in private schools, and only those families who can make up the difference between the voucher amount and the tuition amount will be able to take advantage of vouchers.

The first assumption implicit in these objections is that private school tuition is higher than the per student cost of public education. However, Boaz and Barrett present 1995 data showing that the national average cost of private schools is $3116. The national average cost of public education is $6857. In Florida, the average cost per student in the public education system for 1995 was $5490 ("Education Week Quality Counts, '97"). The truth is that private education is less, not more, expensive than public education. In order to confirm that these data are nationally applicable, Boaz and Barrett surveyed private schools from Jersey City to San Francisco to Atlanta to Indianapolis. The myth of high-priced private education is exactly that-a myth. The contention of inexpensive public education is also revealed for what it is-a lie. Hand-in-hand with the cost issue is the expressed alarm over the prospect of good students departing the public schools, leaving only underachieving, disengaged, and special needs students to be educated in the public schools. As articulated in "Special Alerts: Private School Vouchers Debated" prepared by the Intercultural Development Research Association: "Vouchers would simply mean that the children in public schools with the fewest resources will be left behind in public schools that are even poorer and more inadequate. These same children -students with special needs, minorities, low-income children, disabled students and students who do not speak English - are truly unlikely candidates for private schools that use their own criteria for selection." The unspoken assumption is that these students are, by definition, underachievers uninterested in learning and unmotivated by uninterested parents who do not value or encourage their children's education. Not only is this an offensive supposition, it is also untrue. As repeatedly demonstrated by Jonathan Kozol (Death At An Early Age), the parents of special needs, economically disadvantaged, and minority students care desperately about their children's education but have encountered a brick wall of assumptions about themselves and their children which they have been unable to either overcome or escape. Perhaps more than any other group, these captives of a system which so thoroughly disrespects, dismisses, and stereotypes them deserve an escape route, at all costs, from that system.

Voucher opponents argue that, even if vouchers were made available to low-income, minority, and special needs students, they would for the most part be rejected for admission to most private schools. This argument is negated by a 1991 investigation conducted by Myron Leiberman into current practices among private institutions ("Markets Versus Monopolies in Education: The Historical Perspective," Andrew Coulson, Education Policy Analysis Archives, 1996). Leiberman found that, rather than focusing on easy-to-educate students, the single largest group of for-profit schools actually serves those students whom public education defenders claim would most likely be rejected. Further, research presented by Coulson indicates that, "urban private schools are able to maintain a higher level of discipline than their public counterparts with few if any admissions requirements, and only infrequent student expulsions."

The fallback position of voucher opponents is that racial segregation would emerge as a primary social feature of private schools under a voucher system. However, research conducted by Coulson documents that, "racial segregation within American public schools was greater than that among private schools. So, while the percentage of African-American students in the public sector is greater than the percentage in the private sector, public schools are more likely to be all-white or all-black than their private counterparts."

Returning to the issue of cost inflation potential under a voucher system, it is unclear exactly why or how this inflation would occur. The fundamental premise of our nation' s economic system is that competition drives costs down, not up, and nowhere has the validity of that premise been more fortified than in the intensely competitive arena of information technology. Competition compels and rewards innovation, efficiency, and productivity. Even Albert Shanker, while head of the American Federation of Teachers, acknowledged, "It's time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody's role is spelled out in advance, and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It's no surprise that our school system doesn't improve. It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy" (Boaz and Barrett). We should take Mr. Shanker at his word.

What is the will of the people? A 1997 national Gallup Poll conducted on behalf of Phi Delta Kappa found that the majority of parents, 55 per cent in public schools and 68 per cent in nonpublic schools, favor vouchers. A 1998 Mason-Dixon poll conducted in Florida found public support for vouchers at 49 percent and opposition at 43 per cent ("School voucher support on rise," The Tampa Tribune, April 21, 1998). A similar poll conducted the previous fall had the support figures reversed. According to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Buddy McKay, "When a majority of the voters understand the issue fully that poor people will get what they can't use (because vouchers won't pay the full cost of private school) and the further weakening of our education system, I think I'll be all right." (meaning his candidacy {my interpretation of his statement} which in the end was not all right. He lost to Jeb Bush, a voucher proponent).  I propose that a majority of the voters are beginning to understand the issue, and this growing understanding is the basis for the shift in public support toward vouchers at both the state and national levels. Since we know that McKay's assertion that private schools are more expensive than public schools is untrue, his basis for objecting to vouchers is, at best, demonstrative of his ignorance of the issue and, at worst, intentionally deceptive.

Are vouchers constitutional? There has been a great deal of litigation which directly or tangentially addresses the role of public funds in the conduct of private education.

In an article entitled "Are School Vouchers Constitutional?" (Susan Batte, Separation of Church and State Organization), the judicial history of public funding of public mandates in private education is outlined. These cases have tended to be litigated as often under the Fourteenth Amendment as under the First Amendment.

In Everson v Board of Education (1947) Justice Hugo Black wrote: "The First Amendment of the Constitution means at least this: Neither a state nor the federal government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another... No tax in any amount large or small can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion." Black's interpretation of the intent of the First Amendment necessitates that government must, in actuality, be hostile towards all faiths in order to be neutral towards all faiths. This hostility was never the intent of the Founding Fathers.

In Lemon v Kurtzman (1971), the "excessive entanglement" test was introduced by the court. While previous court rulings had found some basis for public funding of certain parochial and private school activities, such as secular book purchases and transportation assistance, the Lemon case drew the line at paying teachers in parochial schools to teach secular subjects which the court reasoned might involve the schools' approval or disapproval of lesson plans. The Supreme Court later upheld the state in Mueller v Allen in which tax deductions to parents of children attending either public or non-public schools, including parochial schools, were challenged.

The Supreme Court has hopped back and forth across the "separation" line so many times it is impossible to have a clear picture of the constitutionality of vouchers. Batte states: "Voucher money, in most cases, pays for a religious education." Apparently Batte believes it is so important to prevent families from having access to religious education that even secular private education cannot be made available to families as an educational option, at least until the question of the constitutionality of voucher use in religious schools can be answered. Batte concludes that, "We don't agree on everything the Court has done with respect to its interpretation of the First Amendment... but even in the most accommodationist (sic) reading of these cases, school voucher systems are illegal."

In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott case that slaves were property and Congress could not forbid slavery in the territories without violating a slave owner's constitutional right to own property. The will of the people, their moral outrage over the Dred Scott ruling, prompted the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to end the failed system of slavery. I believe this same public moral outrage will eventually force Congress and the courts to pry open the public school doors and free the children from their enslavement by a failed system of public education.

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From IVBE's newsletter Voices -- Fall, 1998