restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations
If Liberty Mattered, We Wouldnt Even Be Talking About School Vouchers
School vouchers are back in the news, now that a Senate committee voted 17-12 on September 4 for an amendment to permit D.C. to inaugurate a voucher program for low-income families.
Compassionate conservatives are exuberant in their support of yet another attempt to fix the public education fiasco in America. While Im not surprised that the idea of school vouchers has the backing of Big Government Bush and his cohorts, who eagerly latch on to every conceivable government solution to problems like lousy classroom instruction, I think my conservative friends are making a big mistake to go with big government on this issue just because its politically expedient.
The philosophical problem of big government is not a side show in the circus we call the federal bureaucracy; its the main event. If you as a parent feel your child is trapped in an under-performing government school, I can guarantee you that a government-sponsored voucher system will only add to your woes. Never forget Blacks first rule of government: Every dollar of federal funding has a sizeable string attached to it, and, with vouchers, the strands that are affixed are more subtle than with the typical government-sponsored solution. Nevertheless, though it may take longer than with most federal programs, once the governments fingers touch the dough, it can and will insist that its own 
standardsas interpreted by its own educational bureaucratsbe followed.
To put it another way, federal money for education means federal control of education. Is it so hard to see this? If you still dont believe me, may I ask you to go to The Alliance for the Separation of School and State website run by Marshall Fritz? Fritz shows clearly that school vouchers will only serve to change the culture of private schools to be public school look-alikes. Eventually, he argues, it will be impossible to send your children to religion-based schools at all. Are tax credits, then, the solution? Again, Marshall Fritz has the answer: Some think tax-credits are better than vouchers, but ultimately they are only camouflaged vouchers. Charter schools are just public schools on a longer leash. A dog on a leash is still a dog on a leash.
As always in American politics, the real issue boils down to this matter of freedom. To me, the puzzler in all this discussion about vouchers is why conservative Christian leaders are celebrating government coercion when they should be pointing to the wisdom of Fritzs position. Conservatives must see that good education will never be based on government taking taxes paid by hard working people and giving it to poor parents who will thus be enabled to leave public schools they werent paying for in the first place.
I also want to know this: When will evangelical conservative Christian parents realize that the best and easiest way to avoid the tyranny of government education is by removing their children from the public schools altogether?
September 8, 2003
David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.