Public Education

8 Pages 2004 Words

ging education or society. Secretary of education Richard Riley said in 1994 that some American schools are so bad that they “should never be called school at all.” Now, almost 20 years and several reforms later, the public still thinks that American school system is falling and needs to be fixed. The solution most frequently proposed today is school choice, usually involving a voucher system. The present system began to take shape in the nineteenth century, when the states set up locally controlled school districts providing free elementary and high school education. Over time the states passed compulsory schooling laws, which usually were applicable through elementary school and later were raised to age16.
Many of those making the case against school choice are now willing to concede grudgingly that the children who participate in these programs may benefit in some way. But, in their view, this is no compensation for the wider harm that vouchers threaten to do. A lucky few may be helped by the government’s willingness to underwrite private education, but society as a whole, they insist, will inevitably suffer from a policy so contrary to our most fundamental civic principles and institutions.
The most frequently invoked argument on this issue is that allowing public dollars to help support sectarian schools in unconstitutional on its face and strikes at the very heart of our tradition of religious freedom. As the American Civil Liberties Union puts it, “vouchers violate the bedrock principle of separation of church and state,” forcing “all taxpayers to support religious beliefs and practices with which they may strongly disagree.” School vouchers fall may incidentally promote one or another religious creed, but their primary purpose is to improve the educational prospects of inner city students trapped in our very worst public schools...