Devil's deal....

JUST about every responsible conservative and Republican in America seems to be pushing choice at public and private schools through government vouchers. I have in hand "The Educational Freedom Amendment" now proposed for the California Constitution; one of the proponents is Milton Friedman. William Bennett, NATIONAL REVIEW, Focus on the Family, the Wall Street Journal, Newt Gingrich, the Heritage Foundation, the Christian Coalition, and countless others endorse full choice. Their arguments are compelling, as far as they go, but all stop short of presenting the full argument, including the price to be paid, the downside if choice includes government vouchers for private schools. Yes, competition is desperately needed to improve public schools by eroding the monolithic control of government and unions. Yes, inner-city youths desperately need educational options. But the full price for these solutions, if private schools are included, is the virtual abolition of private education through government or judicial control.

Let's examine the major arguments of full-choice advocates and apply them to legislative and judicial history:

1. "We the people can legislate a kind of firewall Proposition 13, as was done in California, that keeps private schools 'free from unnecessary, burdensome, or onerous regulation."' I would initially counter that "We the People" also ratified our Constitution, and look how much radical interpretation has been imposed upon that document by revisionist judges over the past two hundred years. Moreover, it defies history and common sense to argue that the recipient of largesse can forever restrict the terms of the giver. Legislators can eventually change the law, as we learned the hard way at Hillsdale College. When certain federal grants were first offered, in the mid 1960s, Congress declared that no strings would be attached. Ten years later, in the summer of 1975, the government and the courts changed the rules: if a single student at a particular college received a government grant, that would make the college a "recipient" of federal funds, therefore required to comply with centralized, political terms from Washington.

On February 28, 1984, the Supreme Court ratified that ruling in Grove City v. Bell. The Court ruled that "Title IX applies to a college that accepts no direct federal assistance but that enrolls students who receive federal grants that must be used for educational purposes." But this recipiency was "program-specific" --that is, only the specific program receiving the federal aid, not the entire college, was required to comply with Title IX. On March 22, 1988, however, Congress, under the Civil Rights Restoration Act, broadened the term "recipient" from "program-specific" to include the entire school. The Title IX language now read: ". . . the terms 'program or activity' and 'program' mean all [emphasis added] of the operations of . . . a college, university, or . . . a local educational agency . . . , system of vocational education, or other school system." Note the inclusion of elementary and secondary schools.

In other words, if one student receives a Pell grant or GI Bill -like voucher and passes it on to any private school, that entire school is subject to Title IX control.

2. "Private schools are already subject to some government regulations, enjoy some government benefits, and are therefore vulnerable to government control anyway." For example, private schools must comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act; they are the beneficiary of public police and fire protection, their teachers and students use public roads, they enjoy tax exemptions, and they are therefore recipients in this sense of government funds. Gary Bauer was asked at our college's seminar in February 1994 why Focus on the Family was endorsing government vouchers for private schools, and his response was that private schools were already subject to some government control, and that, as a result, it would be easy under the status quo for government officials, if they chose, to impose more control on these schools. True. But just because the camel's nose is under the tent does not mean that we should invite the camel fully in. Why gratuitously and conspicuously invite more government control?

3. "Government control is not that bad." On June 26, 1993, I debated Polly Williams and Lamar Alexander at a NATIONAL REVIEW Institute forum. The former Secretary of Education responded that, yes, taking federal money would subject private institutions to "some rules," but those controls were really not that bad. He added, however, "What Ron said is very important. The single biggest obstacle to any sort of broad-scale program that will let the government money follow the kids to the school that parents think is best for them is what Ron said. That's the single biggest problem. . . . We run a serious risk, as Ron said, that with the [government] money will go some rules." Perhaps these "rules" were not so bad on Secretary Alexander's watch, but not all Secretaries of Education or Administrations would grant such leniency. In 1991, then-Governor Clinton signed into law Arkansas Senate Bill 264 replete with political correctness that is now being codified in Washington. This case had to do specifically with Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments which barred sexual discrimination in funding for school programs, with school sports being the most hotly contested area.

Colleges are subject to no fewer than three federal agencies: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, and the Department of Education's Civil Rights Office. Lawrence Uzzell, Special Assistant to the Undersecretary of the Department of Education during the Reagan Administration, reveals that "the Department of Education regulation-writers openly dictate to schools. . . . The department enforces a total of more than one thousand pages of fine-print laws and regulations -- a standing refutation of the 1950s claim that federal aid would not promote federal control."

The "Goals 2000: Educate America Act" of 1994 stipulates as a "national education goal" that "Each state plan shall include strategies for ensuring that comprehensive, systematic reform is promoted from the bottom up in communities, local educational agencies, and schools."

Goals 2000 is "voluntary" for states, but all fifty states have elected to adopt it. The adopting states share $340 million in federal grants. The U.S. Code for Goals 2000 runs 147 pages in length and includes, for example, the following federal controls on local education:

"[T]he gap in high-school graduation rates between American students from minority backgrounds and their non-minority counterparts will be eliminated." How will this be achieved? "All students will be knowledgeable about the diverse cultural heritage of this nation and about the world community" -- a euphemism for multicultural political correctness.

Local certification will also be controlled by the Federal Government: "The Goals Panel shall . . . review the criteria developed by the National Education Standards and Improvement Council for the certification of State content standards." Even local classroom reading lists are controlled by politically correct government authority: "National Education Goals . . . may include . . . a process for developing, selecting, or recommending instructional materials, including gender-equitable and multicultural materials." And the federal mandate encourages "equity of outcomes," i.e., all students will be equal and all will be above average.

Lamar Alexander's "some rules" are anything but harmless.

On March 2, 1995, William Bennett wrote Rep. Dan Burton: "I oppose Goals 2000 because it attaches a number of 'strings' to grant money it offers. These strings are de facto mandates on states and they are harmful." It is indeed the triumph of hope over experience to believe that government vouchers would be any less harmful. In February 1997, a member of the school board in Wilmette, Illinois, Eva Sorock, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "with $450,000 of Goals 2000 funding already in place" an Illinois school-district consortium had already signed "a contract that clearly left the local school boards out of the picture."

4. "Private schools, after all, don't have to accept government money." True. But following the defeat of Proposition 174 in California, the Association of Christian Schools International found that 132 of its California member schools supported this voucher proposal, with 21 opposed and 25 neutral. Easy money tempts a selling of the soul to Mephistopheles -- who is attractive, not ugly.

5. "If government control becomes too stringent, private-school recipients of government money can elect later to reject that money and accompanying control." True. But most will not be able to do so. Having received the largesse, most private schools will then expand curricula, staff, buildings, salaries, and budgets to the point of irrevocable dependency. (Coincidentally, this expansion, enabled by the infusion of government money, will drive up the costs of private schooling.) With the rare exceptions of Grove City, Hillsdale, and a few others, all private colleges in the U.S. have demonstrated that reliance upon government money becomes irreversible. The recent Virginia Military Institute and Citadel cases illustrate this dependency.

6. "Educational choice needs to be given a chance and has never been tried on a national scale." Not true. It already exists throughout the country at the college level, and what have we found? Pervasive political correctness, excessive dropouts, and exorbitant costs.

In order to implement competition within the educational system and, further, to enable inner-city youths to escape poor and dangerous schools, many good people will argue that the virtual loss of private education is still worth it. But we must at least be honest in confessing that it will be a heavy price to pay, bringing about a loss that will be virtually irrevocable.

Republicans usually seek less government intrusion, but their action on vouchers would greatly expand the reach of government. Moreover, as Chester Finn observed in NATIONAL REVIEW (June 17, 1996): "After the 1994 election Republicans promised that the Department of Education would be eliminated, the federal role downsized, Goals 2000 repealed, and control restored to parents and communities, but essentially nothing has actually been done."

All of this might be sound and fury signifying nothing: There is evidence that the voucher/choice movement, if it includes private schools and is subjected to referenda, is already stone dead. While the issue is hot, the action is verbal, not actual -- and movement comes from legislative fiat, not popular referenda. The chief reason for this is that, ironically, too many grassroots Republicans and conservatives oppose it, for among the following reasons:

-- Half of Republicans are satisfied with public schools.

-- Current or prospective customers of private schools (parents) don't want the status quo disturbed for their children.

-- Many Republicans and conservatives don't approve in principle of taxpayer money going to religious schools; four-fifths of private schools are religious.

-- Many realize that government money to private schools sooner or later will be followed by government control.

Though by no means a perfect alternative, it is better to promote 1) widespread charter schools, 2) voucher choice restricted within the public-school system, 3) private sponsorship, and 4) educational tax credits.