Taking the voucher bait. (The Last Word).

Many misguided conservatives are hailing the Supreme Court's June 27th decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris as a victory for school choice -- a euphemism for a government voucher system that parents can use to pay their children's tuition. In a July 11th editorial in the Washington Post, Senator Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and House majority leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) lavishly praised the decision: "The court's decision confirms that the ability to choose the best school available, be it public or private, is a freedom that should be enjoyed by all Americans, not just those who can afford it."

The high court's decision upheld the constitutionality of the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring program, which offers tuition aid for low-income students to attend participating public or private schools, including religious schools. It was this latter category that had been challenged by one Doris Simmons-Harris and others, based on the by-now-tedious "Establishment Clause" argument. The ruling enjoining the program had been granted by the Federal District Court and affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The Supreme Court's opinion by Chief Justice William Rehnquist noted that the Cleveland program "is one of true private choice, consistent with the Mueller [v. Allen] line of cases, and thus constitutional."

Reaction to the decision was emphatic and appeared to follow "liberal/conservative" patterns: Barry Lynn, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, ranted: "The Supreme Court has taken a wrecking ball to the wall of separation between church and state. This is clearly the worst church-state decision in the past 50 years." Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said vouchers are "bad education policy, and we will continue to fight efforts to introduce them into public education."

Those applauding the decision included free-market economist Milton Friedman, who said: "The market will respond fully and rapidly to the increased demand for private schools generated by the expansion of vouchers for elementary and secondary education." And President Bush, exercising his best down-home, conservative-sounding rhetoric, observed: "The Supreme Court of the United States gave a great victory to parents and students throughout the nation by upholding the decisions made by local folks here in the city of Cleveland, Ohio."

Coming a day after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' June 26th ruling prohibiting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools, perhaps God-fearing conservatives had a gut feeling that Zelman v. Simmons-Harris was a step in the right direction -- a point on the scoreboard for "God's team' so to speak. And if the "liberal" objection to the Cleveland program -- that religious schools were included in it -- were the only conceivable objection, we very likely would be applauding the court right along with the president.

Unfortunately, parents favoring quality, faith-based education for their children have more to fear from a program that channels government funds into religious schools than do "liberals" who worry that a few of their tax dollars might wind up supporting religion. True "choice" in education is not threatened by the absence of vouchers; it is threatened by the only force that can limit freedom: government.

In THE NEW AMERICAN for February 14, 2000, publisher John F. McManus interviewed Mrs. Charlotte Iserbyt, who served as a Special Assistant in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, in the Reagan administration's Department of Education. Mr. McManus observed that Mrs. Iserbyt had "a very negative opinion" of the school voucher system and asked her why.

Mrs. Iserbyt replied: "Very simply, vouchers are a mechanism to gain control over private schooling, and eventually even over homeschooling. If vouchers are used by parents to pay for education outside the government schools, then the issuer of the voucher (the government) will step in to certify that the alternative form of education meets government standards."

Theologian Rousas J. Rushdoony made the same point when he observed that "to channel statist or taxed income in any way into the hands of Christian or home schools is to surrender their freedom and to exchange it for civil controls."

Programs relying on government funding in any way, including school voucher programs, eventually will destroy what they promise to support. Government imposes its own standards on everything it subsidizes and -- in the aftermath of Murray v. Curlett, the U.S. Supreme Court's 1963 decision banning prayer in the public schools -- government's standard is anti-religion.

"What about poor families?" some may ask. "Don't they also have the right to send their children to quality schools, including religious schools?"

Yes, they do. But they also have the responsibility to find ways of financing that education that do not leave such schooling vulnerable to government meddling. And their more fortunate brothers and sisters who share their religious beliefs have parallel responsibilities to help maintain those schools. However, those contributions should be voluntary exercises in charity, not coercive "contributions" made to the tax collector. The latter alternative not only removes the influence of the church, it turns government into the church -- the church of the state.