Life is an exercise in tradeoffs, and school choice — while desirable — is no exception. From Florida to Ohio, voucher programs are finally becoming widely available to American schoolchildren and their families. While novel to some states and municipalities, the concept of vouchers is nothing new in my experience. (Personally, rather than “vouchers,” I’d call the program “choosing which school receives my support, monetarily and otherwise.”)
When my wife and I lived in the Netherlands as newlyweds, years before I became a Christian schoolteacher, we studied the education and social system known as verzuiling, or pillarization. Differing “pillars,” i.e., belief systems in society, would be the foundation of the cultural edifice. The idea is to grant multitudes of worldviews a say within civil society, politics, and, perhaps most of all, education. All taxpayers would simply check the box of the school system to which they would like to send their educational tax dollars. This had the advantage of allowing the taxpayer to decide which “pillar,” or worldview-based school system, agreed most closely with his beliefs and support it with tax cash. Grandparents, parents, and single folk could ship their money to the school of their choice.
In Ontario, Canada, where most of my children were born, a rather unique system evolved. The government-mandated school system, as established early in the province’s history, was assumed at the time to be Protestant — and although it certainly may have been in its original form, it’s a far cry from so today. As time moved on, it seemed unfair to those of the Catholic persuasion to tax them for a school system at odds with their beliefs, so the Catholic school system was granted status — and funding. Since the “Protestant” system had long since ceased, in any real form, to be Protestant in its perspective and curricular worldview, private Christian schools (and others) began to seek funding for their schools. Other provinces, British Columbia and Alberta, to mention two, opened the purse strings to private schools in one form or another; Ontarians argued, “Why not us?”
Value-Neutral Schools Are Impossible
What has been happening in Wisconsin is hardly unique from a broader, world perspective; it certainly has, however, caused a stir in these parts of the Excited States of America (to use a nickname coined by Canadian commentator Allan Fotheringham). Public schools, or public school unions, felt that their monopoly on state recognition and public funding was threatened. Scott Walker’s public employee reforms, Act 10, confirmed their fears. For decades, however, Milwaukee and Racine schools have benefited in various ways from access to public funding. The school at which I teach has approximately 50 percent voucher students. I don’t see this as “taking money from the public schools.” I see this as my educational tax dollars going where I would like to see them go — democratized funding.
This brings me to the issue that “always makes my a** chew tobacco,” as my father used to say. The idea that I, as a taxpayer, must surrender my educational dollars to the monolithic state system, which espouses foundational beliefs contradictory to mine, galls. For decades, Christians’ taxes (and those of other non-secular faiths) were taken to fund systems operating on antithetical principles. (READ MORE: The Thales Way: The Book That Can Save American Education)
I see the issue not so much as a matter of money as one of justice. The idea of a “value-neutral” school is nonsense. Every decision made by every school promotes one set of values and pushes aside a host of others. And not only does it happen, but it should happen. Parents and like-minded individuals, much like the European example, should be able to band together to see that their children are instructed in the way in which they choose.
I understand that the state has the responsibility to see that schools meet certain basic standards and teach general subjects necessary for the function and in the interest of the common good. Generally, I think agreements can be reached on those basics. But how they are addressed and presented, the standards by which they are evaluated, and the worldview that undergirds the structure and pedagogy of the school should be left up to the school and the parents who control it.
School Vouchers: Bane and Blessing
There are risks, however, to attaching private schools to public funding. Having seen the way in which our state functions — and the strings attached to government spending — I will always fear that our (my school’s) independence will be challenged and, perhaps, even attacked. For example, according to the Wisconsin Council of Religious and Independent Schools, in “Voucher Schools Face New Regs,” “warnings about government overreach and the regulation of voucher schools in the state’s reading bill” have gone unheeded by Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers. In fact, Evers has since signed the new reading bill, requiring “literacy coaches” and introducing many other facially simple but, in effect, tricky additives.
Parents flocking to our schools of late could as easily leak away should funding be removed by a DPI type of bureaucracy. Maybe that won’t happen, but how quickly could schools adapt to reduced enrollments? Colleges are struggling to manage with even modest enrollment declines. Further, Madison has implemented minor impositions already.
As a voucher school, we’re required to have four audits of our operations, protocols, and budgets conducted, as mandated by the Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction. Further, one such audit is significantly more in-depth than what is demanded of the public school. Both systems do need a rigorous financial audit, but voucher schools endure a multi-day scrutiny wherein administrators must fill out a rather strict and invasive 100-point questionnaire to be compared with those of five other administrators to verify the information — and then confirm teacher credentials, including proving that the maiden names on licenses match the teachers’ current names. For their part, teachers at voucher schools must verify student attendance records and student grades with signed hard copies of attendance records and grades twice per year. It’s all busy work and drudgery until one forgets a form and all hell breaks loose. (READ MORE: Your Child’s Teacher May Not Be in the Classroom)
Beyond outward meddling is a social palsy: Schools may not require voucher families to take part in fundraising for the school. Whether serving hours making pies, selling magazines, or working at the school resale store, private schools depend on their member families to pitch in and help cover the operation costs through avenues outside of mere tuition. While legacy families are generous and readily accept those paying less out of pocket, it can grate on their affections that those same families are also freed from the mandatory volunteerism that those paying full freight must observe. Small potatoes, maybe, but parochial schools are kept alive by communitarian acts that benefit the organization as a whole. Policies that undermine the emotion of pulling together should be delicately implemented and best avoided entirely.
These are not direct threats to education, but they show just how intimately our state involves itself in the average school day. I am concerned about the future day when parents might have to choose between losing funding or surrendering on matters of faith and stewardship of their children’s education. Of course, by then, I’ll be retired and moldering in a tree stand, but the point remains. Representative education spending doesn’t depend on my direct ties to it as a teacher; it is a matter of principle.
Kevin Gesch is a graduate of Calvin College and has taught for 32 years in Illinois and Wisconsin private schools. During that time, he shepherded his six children and a host of grandchildren through Christian schools and colleges.