Back in the 1970s, when the presumed (though not necessarily true) reflections of the 1960s still shined a bit, I was involved in the establishment of an alternative school. We were far from the only teachers (and I use that word intentionally in place of educators) who started such alternative schools. The idea was to provide innovative, compassionate, and challenging opportunities for students, particularly those living in inner-city neighborhoods.

None of these schools was based on religious fundamentalism, in fact none of them referred to religion except in historical terms. They had a spontaneity in which the here and now could trump an established curriculum. If something exciting or of special significance happened on a particular day, the curriculum would be put aside and the moment would be seized. I remember once calling the pope collect to get his full opinion on treatment for woman who was comatose and about to die. Surprisingly, the Vatican did not take the collect call.

We often talked of vouchers because some of us were not thrilled at the idea of working for $3,000 a year. Tuition was $580 a year, and frankly, that just couldn’t pull the freight. Foundations and corporations had little interest in such schools, because the type of critical thinking that was encouraged, combined with a certain anti-establishment philosophy, was a threat to them.

We were aware of the fact that there was this new idea of educational vouchers. It was more than an idea; it was even happening in Milwaukee and a few smaller communities. The idea was that public money could be used to help these schools. Actually, that’s not technically correct. Rather, each family would be given a voucher or coupon to be used for educational purposes. They could use it to pay “tuition” to whatever school they might choose. The idea could even be extended so that the voucher would cover such educational activities as piano lessons or special art classes.

There were a couple of problems with vouchers. What about quality control? Could the money go to a school where the staff merely wanted to pocket the money and do very little for the students? And then there was the church-state issue. Could the money be used for religiously-based schools, known as parochial schools? In Milwaukee,the answer was yes, but other communities would have to wrestle with the issue.

In August 2012,  Missouri passed a state amendment giving students the “right” to opt out of certain classes for religious reasons. If a student was a “creationist,” he or she would not have to attend classes on evolution, even though all respectable scientific evidence concludes that Charles Darwin was correct. Missouri has tried to inject more religion and right-wing thinking into its schools. It also has a prescribed curriculum that takes all the spontaneity out of teaching and learning that existed in 1970s alternative schools. What a loss for both students and teachers.

Religion and misinformation have become so prominent in voucher schools in Louisiana that students are being taught such “facts” as “Slave masters were nice guys,: “The KKK was A-OK,” and “the Great Depression wasn’t as bad as the liberals made it sound.” As scary as this content is, it’s equally frightening to consider that this is a state-sanctioned curriculum allowable for voucher schools.

In many states, religious fundamentalists have been pushing their agendas with great intensity in public schools and charter schools. Keep in mind that charter schools are a distant cousin of voucher-based schools.

Frankly, no matter how much virtue I might see in the idea of vouchers (and I still hold reservations about them under the best of circumstances), I really can’t support them anywhere in America. That’s because of our regression into the state’s rights movement that brought us segregation and the abrogation of human rights in the worst way. In the case of vouchers, as so many other issues, states just can’t be trusted. So while I hold great interest in and even hope of progress through vouchers, the presence of fifty states mucks it up so much that I have to withdraw my support. One alternative idea replaced with another, and who loses? The students.

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More good news on separation of church and state: A Colorado district court ruled, on August 12, 2011, that “a voucher plan adopted by the Douglas County School District violates the Colorado Constitution by diverting taxpayer money to pay students’ tuition at religious and other private schools.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the ACLU of Colorado and the national ACLU challenged the program on behalf of a group of parents, clergy and other taxpayers. [Americans United describes itself as “a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.]

The program in question—the“Choice Scholarship Pilot Program”—offered tuition vouchers worth $4,575 to students to spend at religious and other private schools.  Part of the problem, according to the lawsuit, was that 18 of the 23 schools approved for the program were religious.

“The evidence overwhelmingly demonstrated that the voucher program illegally uses taxpayer money to promote religion and that it provides virtually no meaningful choice to families who don’t want to put their children in religious schools,” said Alex J. Luchenitser, senior litigation counsel for Americans United. “It’s hardly a choice when the overwhelming majority of private schools participating in the program are religious.”

“The court correctly recognized that it is unconstitutional for the state to underwrite a child’s religious education,” said Mark Silverstein, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado. “Families who wish to send their children to a private school may do so, but not with government funds that may only be used to provide a free public education for Colorado’s children.”

Undoubtedly, this ruling will face appeals: by the religious groups who benefit from vouchers; by right-wingers who hope to undermine a public system that [theoretically] promotes education for everyone and creates [again, theoretically] an educated electorate; and by business interests who see a potential new revenue stream in the ultimate privatization of American education.

I realize that many on the left have expressed support for public-school vouchers, as a way of creating an educational marketplace that could spur less-competitive schools to improve. I acknowledge that there may be merit in that rationale. But in the Colorado case, as in—I suspect—many others, the voucher concept is being cynically manipulated for the benefit of religious schools. And one more question: The  religious groups who vociferously insist on taxpayer-supported “school choice” for parents and children–Do they happen to be the same people who vociferously oppose reproductive choice for women? Just asking.

Kudos to Americans United, ACLU, and the court.

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A former champion of No Child Left Behind has written a book criticizing the policy as a failure, especially because it relies on standardized testing. Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch also says school choice is a bad idea.

According to blogger Monica Potts, of  Tapped: [group blog of The American Prospect], Ravitch says:

“There should not be an education marketplace, there should not be competition,” Ravitch says. “Schools operate fundamentally — or should operate — like families. The fundamental principle by which education proceeds is collaboration. Teachers are supposed to share what works; schools are supposed to get together and talk about what’s [been successful] for them. They’re not supposed to hide their trade secrets and have a survival of the fittest competition with the school down the block.”

Potts comments:  “The idea of school choice fuels the charter school and voucher systems,  and the hope is schools become better through a sense of competition. A steady, if unproven, criticism of school choice systems is that the best schools simply enroll the best students. Even if they don’t actively do so, there could be a self-selection bias in the parents who actively seek out better schools to send their children to. But research found the biggest problem was that parents who were offered the chance to enroll students in better schools often did not do so. They liked the idea of the school as being part of the community.

After looking at the data, Ravitch now feels that’s an idea worth going back to.”

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