D.C. vouchers face Senate test

Washington Times ^ | Thursday, September 11, 2003 | By George Archibald

[JohnHuang2]

Opponents of the D.C. school-voucher program said yesterday they will combine efforts to kill the initiative in the Senate.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, and other opponents "will use all the tools available to them to try to defeat this legislation on the Senate floor," said James Manley, spokesman for the ranking member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

[JohnHuang2]

Thursday, September 11, 2003

Quote of the Day by ALASKA

[goldstategop]

Chappaquidick Ted wants D.C's black schoolchildren to remain in underperforming public schools while his own kids went to the best private schools. Whatta guy!

[Torie]

All but 15 House Republicans voted for the program, which would be the first federally funded voucher initiative in history. All but three House Democrats opposed the measure.

Amazing. The above says a lot about the state of mind of the two parties at present. I could say more, but won't.

[CurlyDave]

Up until a few months ago I was in favor of vouchers, but then that nagging little doubt in the back of my mind started to sprout.

As soon as we have vouchers as a common thing, how long will it be until the government controls the curriculum in all private schools as well as in all public schools? 5 years? 10 years?

Surely it will be no longer than 10 years before some idiot liberal persuades congress that we have to make sure all of our children learn about _____. You fill in the blank.

I bet you that shortly after vouchers are universally implemented, Sister Mary will have to do the condom on a banana demonstration for her sixth grade students.

[Torie]

You are reading the Teachers' Union disingenuous propaganda, and swallowing it whole. In many places, such as say parts of Canada, that has not happened, even after 40 years. Even if true, that still gives us about a generation to lift the folks up and out from the plantation, and set them free, before the rot sets in. If it does, eventually, we are back to status quo ante. It is worth the risk. Indeed, it is a moral imperative, IMO.

[Congressman Billybob]

My latest column, posted on FR and carried on ChronWatch today, deals with this precise subject. As for the position of the Democrats that send their children to private and parochial students, but want to trap D.C. children in rotten schools -- God, I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, "Paying the Wrong Piper," discussion thread on FR. Article may also be on ChronWatch and UPI.

[JohnHuang2]

Thanks for the link, my friend.

[Congressman Billybob]

More than a few people make the argument that you do. Consider the history of the G.I. Bill. Beginning in 1945 upwards of 2 million veterans went to college under the provisions of this (and subsequent bills). Students were permitted to make their own choice of institutions to attend. One of the test cases of this program involved a student who chose to attend Notre Dame (but this was not "government advancement of religion" because the choice was made solely by the student).

Notre Dame has now had more than fifty years of students attend there on government-paid scholarships from the G.I. Bill to R.O.T.C. scholarships. If it is your belief that Notre Dame has become less Catholic because it has accepted government-paid scholarships, please say so.

But if you acknowledge that Notre Dame, and all the other religious universities in the United States have not been "corrupted" from their religious missions by the advent of government scholarships, then you have a different task. What is the basis for concluding that scholarships (which is what vouchers are) will somehow be more corrupting to high schools and elementary schools than they have been to universities.

Billybob / John

[CurlyDave]

What is the basis for concluding that scholarships (which is what vouchers are) will somehow be more corrupting to high schools and elementary schools than they have been to universities.

The Federal government does not requlate what is taught in colleges and universities. Although, if we give them the idea they may start.

State governments (the ones who will be handing out most of the vouchers) do regulate what is taught in elementary and secondary schools already. It is a far easier jump from the current regulation to "just a few strings" attached to the vouchers, and then more & more regulation.

Already most of the voucher programs in current trials stipulate that the school must accept the voucher as the total payment for tuition. If these were true scholarships the students would be allowed to supplement the voucher payment with their own (or more likely, their parents') money.

If you take the king's money, you are the king's man.

[CurlyDave]

A P.S. to previous reply.

I know I have read somewhere about Catholic university medical programs being forced to teach abortion techniques in order to receive federal money. That sounds like corruption of their religious principles to me.

[nathanbedford]

If you take the king's money, you are the king's man. But you have agreed at the beginning that this principle does not apply at the university level:

The Federal government does not requlate what is taught in colleges and universities.

Your assertion that the government will regulate on the secondary level when it grants vouchers, while it admittedly does not do so on the university level, where it grants scholarships, is grounded on the proposition that it already regulates on the secondary level. Unless you are implying that the government will somehow regulate more on the secondary level or extend its regulations to private/religious schools, I miss your point.

The battle is already being fought on this level. Here are the trenches. Here is where it must be won. Appeasement will not work. Secondary school vouchers utterly reshape the means of warfare in our favor.

The voucher program is a method to permit secondary students to avoid unpalatable regulations by chosing institutions with more congenial policies. Since we all seem to agree that, for the most part, government regulations are a bad thing, why would we not want to give our students one more tool in the fight against them?

A voucher program to religious schools might give government an excuse for regulation but not incentive to regulate - the left is already fully incentivized in this regard. I do not think the left needs an excuse or an incentive to shape our secondary education system into an introdoctrination camp. But moving hundreds of thousands of kids into a free zone with vouchers might just tip the political equation toward freedom.

If a religious school is unduly regulated, it can opt out of the voucher program and retain its freedom, finding itself no poorer than it is today.

[CurlyDave]

Unless you are implying that the government will somehow regulate more on the secondary level or extend its regulations to private/religious schools, I miss your point.

My point is exactly that the government (state and/or federal) will extend its regulations to private/religious schools through voucher programs. And, being used to regulating at this level it will regulate more.

Secondary school vouchers utterly reshape the means of warfare in our favor.

Tuition tax credits work far better and insulate the schools from government interference.

If a religious school is unduly regulated, it can opt out of the voucher program and retain its freedom, finding itself no poorer than it is today.

As true as that might be there are two flaws.

1. Once a person or institution has adjusted to a higher income level it is very painful to return to a lower one.

2. The ones who suffer most from the government regulation are the students. They have no choice but to go where their script (voucher) is accepted. A tuition tax credit is hard cash, accepted everywhere. And, it can be supplemented by the parents.

I sent my daughter to private schools for most of her education, and it was a real financial stretch. At the same time my tax money was being wasted on a "free" public school I could not allow her to use in good conscience.

...why would we not want to give our students one more tool in the fight against them?(government regulations)

Because it will ultimately leave us in a worse position. Existing private/parochial schools will slowly be brought into the govenrment fold. The pressure will be very great.

Far better to hold out for true reform than to allow the camel's nose into our tent.

[nathanbedford]

I take your points about a tuition tax credit but the credit should be against taxes, not income. Further, tax credits are not of much use to the folks in DC who lack the income to credit against. In DC I see no other help for the poor who are so callously exploited by the public educational establishment except vouchers. This is probably equally valid for most if inner-city America.

Perhaps you could fashion a tax relief system supplemented with a voucher for low income students. The conundrum is that the poor need to escape the system the most and they are least empowered by tax relief. Once vouchers at any level are intróduced, your concerns about creeping government regulation of our private schools arise.

I see no alternative but to court the risk which accompany the introduction of vouchers.

[jwalsh07]

No surprises here. One of the guys I golf with is a staunch democrat running for the school board. We get along fine, a nice guy. He asked me if I was going to vote for him, he knows I'm a conservative.

I asked him if was in favor of vouchers. He said "absolutely not". I said "then you'll have to get elected without my family's 6 votes in the election".

[CurlyDave]

A tax credit is a fully-refundable tax credit. If it were used against income it would be a tax deduction.

Think of something just like the current earned income credit. This can be refunded even if tax liability is zero. Low income people can even elect to get the refund in monthly installments.

I bet most schools would accept a parent signing some kind of form allowing the tax credit to be paid directly to the school.

[nathanbedford]

I understand the difference and wanted to make it explicit.

If you enact some sort of negative tax you will run into the problem of those impoverished parents uning their checks for some other purpose. That does not offend me but I image a lot of liberals would go balistic at the thought of all that good social engineering going to waste. Wouldn't they be torn between the need to control and the need to avoid vouchers!

If controls were affixed to the benefits, you come pretty close to creating a thing that walks, looks and quacks like a voucher. And if you restrict the checks to only families with school age kids, you run the risk of establishing an open entitlement as the demand for universal benefits grows.

[ladylib]

The Association of Classical and Christian Schools won't accept vouchers:

http://www.accsedu.org/pageview.asp?PageID=1627

As much as I like the idea, I'm afraid the government would interfere.

[ladylib]

I think you might be right. Bob Jones University had a racial dating policy (they accepted federal funds). The case went all the way to the Supreme Court and Bob Jones University lost.

We aren't necessarily talking about academic subjects. We're talking about policies such as the one that Bob Jones had or sexual antidiscrimination policies. Can you imagine a Christian school having to hire a homosexual teacher, a transgendered because they receive voucher money?

[nathanbedford]

There is another argument if favor of vouchers and against tax credits. A full blown voucher program will blow up the left's choke hold on the indoctrination of the utes of America because even the public schools will have to compete for vouchers.

Tax credits might provede some affirmative relief to embattled parents but it offers no negative consquences against incompetent educators who will be funded through property taxes.

Moreover, there is the possibility that if you do not limit tax credits to students who actually attend private schools, there will be a double cost to the tax payer to educate such kids who remain in public schools but collect the credit. If you limit the credit to private attendees, you have created a voucher by another name and might still have doubled the cost of the child's education because of the inertia supporting public programs. If a school's census is reduced by students opting out with tax credits, a savvy administrator simply adds a new department, program, building, etc. and continues to collect the taxes.

Remember, the assumption here is that the educational establishment is impervious to ordinary democratic controls and that is why we need tax credits or vouchers in the first place.