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Illinois School Board Journal
January/February 2003

Wrong way to reform deficient public schools

by Harris Fawell

Harris Fawell of Naperville served the 13th Congressional District in the U.S. House for 14 years before retiring in 1998. These comments also have appeared on the opinion pages of the Daily Herald in Arlington Heights.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in the recent Cleveland school voucher case (Zelman vs. Simmons-Harris), erased the line dividing church and state by holding, in effect, that state taxes could pay for religious elementary education so long as the taxes are funneled to religious schools indirectly by government vouchers through parental choice. In doing so, it overruled a 1947 case (Emerson v. Board of Education of Ewing) that, under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion."

Dissenting Supreme Court Justice David Souter put it this way: "public tax money" may now (through the use of parental vouchers) "pay at a systemic level for teaching the covenant with Israel and Mosaic law in Jewish schools, the primacy of the Apostle Peter and the Papacy in Catholic schools, the truth of reformed Christianity in Protestant schools, and the revelation to the Prophet in Muslim schools, to speak only of major religious groupings in the Republic."

Souter continued, "the scale of aid to private, religious schools approved by the Court is unprecedented ..." and is "profoundly at odds with the Constitution."

"Especially," added Justice John Paul Stevens, "where the heartland of religious beliefs, such as primary religious education, is involved."

I agree.

Certainly, the educational crisis confronting the Cleveland school district is a compelling argument for public educational reform. The majority of the 75,000 children enrolled in Cleveland's public schools are from low-income and minority families. The district failed to meet any of its 18 state standards for minimal acceptable performance. More than 3,700 students participated in the voucher program, most of whom (96 percent) enrolled in religious schools.

Yet as Justice Stevens stated: "the solution to the disastrous conditions that prevented over 90 percent of the student body from meeting basic proficiency standards obviously required massive improvements unrelated to the voucher program." The voucher program provided relief to less than 5 percent of the students enrolled in the district's schools.

There is no excuse for the decades of neglect to quality public schools in large poverty areas. None. But the answer is not to drain money from public schools to support private religious schools.

As Justice Stevens concludes, to allow a law to pass constitutional muster that authorizes the use of public funds "to pay for the indoctrination of thousands of grammar school children in particular faiths" is "profoundly misguided."

And the action of the Supreme Court could not have come at a worse time! America is becoming a "little United Nations," composed of many cultures and religious beliefs. Our country's support of separation of church and state has been a model for humanity, a beacon of light for democratic secularism, pluralism, religious tolerance, freedom of expression and against the growing linkage between religion and wars in many parts of the world.

As a result, America has produced independent, strong and tolerant religious bodies not reliant upon government largesse or intrigue.

One need only look at the Balkans, Northern Ireland, India, Pakistan, the Middle East, Asia and many other parts of the world where the entanglement of government and religion breeds social conflicts, second class citizenships and terrorism.

Justice Souter observed: "Public money devoted to payment of religious costs, educational or other, brings the quest for more. It brings too the struggles of sect against sect for the larger share or for any."

It is an invitation for social conflict and a de-emphasis of quality public education for all.

Our nation can ill advise other nations to embrace democratic secularism if we cannot practice it ourselves. The world has seen enough misuse of all its major religions.