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11 Sivan 5759 - May 26 1999 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Opinion & Comment
Much Ado about U.S. Vouchers Programs Raising Hopes, Creating Controversy
by Rabbi Avi Shafran

When tens of thousands of union members marched past New York's City Hall in Lower Manhattan Wednesday May 19, a punning placard held aloft by one demonstrator under the banner of the United Federation of Teachers read "`Vouchsafe' Public Education:" and then, a bit below, "No Vouchers." [The apparent misuse of the word "vouchsafe" -- which means not "to protect" but "to offer condescendingly" -- was emblematic of one reason the idea of school vouchers has become so popular of late: the sorry state of much of modern- day public school education.]

There are other reasons, though, besides the decline in educational achievement, that have helped make the idea of providing tax-generated funds to students' parents for their use toward tuition at the schools of their choice increasingly popular. One is the radical change in the moral environments of the nation's public schools; another is the all too evident increase in school-related violence. Religious parents, including Jewish ones, moreover, see vouchers as a means of receiving benefits from the taxes they pay to receive their legally-mandated educations in settings that comply with the requirements of their respective faiths.

For these and other reasons, the national movement toward "school choice" is gaining momentum, with a variety of legislatures and elected officials putting forth voucher proposals in cities and states across America. These proposals have engendered considerable opposition from supporters of the existing public education establishment, both in terms of constitutional challenges and grassroots mobilization against vouchers, and the issue is likely to occupy a prominent position in the national debate in the United States for years to come.

Among late, encouraging developments for proponents of educational vouchers was the passage of a Florida bill earlier this month. This legislation -- which the state's governor, Jeb Bush, promoted as a cornerstone of his gubernatorial campaign -- will create the first statewide voucher system in the nation. The law will offer parents of students in Florida's least successful schools (as determined by an existing state policy of grading public schools) "Opportunity Scholarships" worth up to $4000 to enroll their children in the private or religious schools of their choice.

While teachers' unions and some Jewish groups have vowed to fight the new law in court, a number of religious groups, including Agudath Israel of America and its recently inaugurated South Florida regional affiliate, have lauded the Florida example, calling it "an important first step."

According to Agudath Israel's executive vice president for government and public affairs and general counsel Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, voucher plans like Florida's do not violate the U.S. Constitution's Establishment Clause, which forbids the use of public funds for religious purposes. "The federally mandated separation of church and state," he explains, "prohibits only government from using tax monies for religious entities. In well-constructed voucher programs, the government is aiding parents, who are then entitled to choose whichever schools they deem best for their children."

Two other states, Maine and Vermont, have enacted limited voucher programs, for students who live in rural areas not serviced by public schools. Maine's Supreme Court recently upheld a lower court's ruling that prevented five families from using state-funded vouchers to send their children to a religious school. A citywide voucher program is in place as well in Cleveland, as is one in Milwaukee. These programs have been subjected to legal challenge, with the Cleveland program still pending before the Ohio Supreme Court and the Milwaukee program having been upheld by Wisconsin's Supreme Court.

Indeed, approximately 40 state legislatures have weighed voucher proposals, scholarship programs, tuition tax credits and other aid involving religious schools this year.

And more than a million families across the United States responded to the offer of Theodore J. Forstman, a Wall Street financier, who raised $170 million in scholarships to send low-income children to private schools. The response to the "Children Scholarship Fund" (information about which was widely disseminated by Agudath Israel) was particularly striking in light of the fact that the 40,000 winners, which include a number of Orthodox Jewish children, will be provided scholarships of only $600 to $1600 a year for four years. They will be , moreover, required to make a matching contribution -- averaging $1000 -- from their own pockets. Mr. Forstman interpreted the broad interest in the offer as "a cry from the heart" of American families who are currently "get[ting] their product [public education] for nothing and they're lining up around the corner to pay $1000."

One of the most contentious voucher controversies has unfolded in New York City, where Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's proposal to create a pilot program that would pay tuition for about 3000 poor students to go to private schools has alienated, among others, Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew. Dr. Crew maintains that vouchers will destroy the public school system by draining its resources.

Mr. Zwiebel takes issue with that concern. In a letter to the editor published by The New York Times, the Agudath Israel leader argued that "the public policy question we should be asking is not whether vouchers will do anything for public schools but whether they will do anything for education as a whole. Our first concern should be for our children, not our bureaucracies."

"If failing public schools will be casualties in a new system that allows dissatisfied parents to opt out, the winners will be the children who receive a better education elsewhere.

Rabbi Avi Shafran is Director of Public Affairs Agudath Israel of America.


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