Voucher a Bridge, Not a Solution
--from The Cleveland Plain Dealer
January 16, 2000 

For months, school voucher watchers around the country have been handicapping the "race to the U.S. Supreme Court": Would the Cleveland case or the Milwaukee case get there first?  Events in Ohio last week have provided the definitive answer to those who favor an educated public: Who cares?

Oh, the ruling on whether it is permissible for church-run schools to receive state funding through vouchers will be important when it comes.  But the constitutional aspect--defining in greater detail the principle of separation of church and state--is likely to be far more important than the educational aspect.

In fact, a couple of Northeast Ohio legislators spent last week demonstrating why vouchers can be nothing more than a bridge to something that serves parents and students better.

Republican State Rep. James Trakas, a voucher supporter, said last Monday that he wants State Auditor Jim Petro's office to make sure voucher schools are delivering what they promise.  "The issue is tax dollars, and are they being properly utilized? Trakas said.

The conservative in Trakas is unhappy that a few private voucher-supported schools in Cleveland have collected handsome state-supplied sums while operating in unsafe conditions and accepting payment for students not in attendance.  Worse yet, these bad eggs have cast more suspicion on the program as a whole, which already is criticized as far too expensive and not nearly effective enough.

A day after Trakas made his comments, Democratic State Sen. C.J. Prentiss pushed a bill through the Ohio Senate that would require voucher-supported schools to meet the same minimum standards as public schools, and require the Ohio Department of Education to inspect them annually.  She didn't have to push too hard; only one senator voted against. 

The liberal in Prentiss hates to see dollars diverted from public schools to competing educational programs, even if the programs work reasonably well.  Diverting dollars to voucher schools that give every appearance of being academic rip-offs really makes her mad.

The valid point from both sides can be summed up thus:  We're wasting taxpayer's money, and someone has to hold these schools accountable.  You'll recognize that as the very same valid point critics make about a system of public schools that turns out hundreds of thousands of kids nationwide with barely a nodding acquaintance with English and rudimentary powers of calculation.

Now Jim Petro's fine fellow and a better auditor than his state has seen in many a year.  But his office is not an educational institution.  And even if Petro wanted to become the voucher schools czar, he won't be auditor forever.  His successors might not relish the burden. 

That leaves us with Prentiss' suggestion that the Ohio Department of Education--the same folks whose educational philosophies  have filled the lifeboats with voucher kids--make sure voucher schools stay up to snuff.  That would be fine except for the whole point that voucher schools are supposed to be different from public schools.

Makes you want to see what's behind Door No. 3, doesn't it?  How about something radical: Take this awful burden off of the state's shoulders. Avoid difficult questions of church and state.  Vie families real power to direct the education of children.

Institute a system of tuition tax credits.  Let every Ohio family take a set amount per school-age child right off the top  of its tax bill.  The voucher kids get $2,250, as it not stands but the tax credit would have to be much lower, since the average Ohioan pays the state less than $1,300 a year.  Maybe the legislature could borrow the carnival wheel the Ohio Supreme Court uses to make its school-financing decisions.

Kids who want to attend public school can bring in the check for the tax-credit amount on the first day of class and call it even.  Families that choose private school can apply the money to tuition.  The state needn't trouble itself about money, it never sees and never spends.  Let someone else waste it for a change, in the unlikely event that Ma and Pa Ohio pack their kids off to the Basket Weaving Academy.

Public schools would start with all of the advantages: the buildings already exist, the computers are in place, the proficiency tests are all written.  All the public schools would lack is the public's confidence, which explains why people are looking for escape routes like vouchers.

But vouchers won't let them escape very far or for very long.  Government can't abide education that isn't standardized, so alternative methods of education can't stay alternative for long.

This presents two big problems, and neither of them is the church's influence on the state.  One problem is that whether they're inspected by the state auditor or the state superintendent of public instruction, church schools that stay in the voucher program become de facto government schools.

The other problem is that vouchers are a phony solution that keeps families from fully exercising that power of their own money and their common sense to buy the kind of schools they want.