Vouchers: Where's the Public Accountability
An editorial by Barbara Miner,
Managing Editor, Rethinking Schools
The principal was being fired, teachers were leaving, the school was
in upheaval. At the time, I was a reporter for The Milwaukee Journal
covering a parents' meeting discussing the controversy.
I never made it to the meeting. Lawyers stood in my way and said it was
a private school and reporters were not welcome. End of discussion.
I was enraged -- but found out the lawyers were right. Shutting a reporter
out of a parents' meeting is against the law in Milwaukee public schools.
But private schools get to operate by different rules.
I was reminded of this incident recently when the Wisconsin's Supreme
Court upheld the constitutionality of Milwaukee's voucher program. For
now, at least, low-income students in Milwaukee will be able to use public
vouchers to attend private and religious schools in the city.
The decision has national implications: publicly funded vouchers for
private schools are at the top of the Republican education agenda. If
vouchers are not yet an issue in your state, wait a month or two.
In the controversy over whether vouchers for religious schools violate
the constitutional separation of church and state, an equally important
issue is often obscured. Just because something is legal doesn't mean
it is good public policy.
It's not mere coincidence that the term "private" is so often
followed by the phrase, "Keep Out!" Private schools, like private
roads, private beaches and private country clubs, don't have to be accountable
to the public. That's why they are called "private."
What does it mean when private schools get public dollars yet don't have
to be accountable to the public? The answer is particularly important
in Milwaukee, because 100% of the students at a private school can receive
vouchers -- in other words, the school doesn't have to have a single student
privately paying tuition -- and the school can still call itself private"
and operate accordingly.
Under the recently upheld legislation, private schools in Milwaukee's
voucher program:
- Do not have to obey the state's open meetings and records laws.
- Do not have to hire certified teachers or even require a college
degree.
- Do not have to release information on employee wages or benefits.
- Do not have to provide data such as test scores, attendance figures,
or suspension and drop-out rates. In fact, the legislation expanding
vouchers to include religious schools specifically eliminated the requirement
that the State Superintendent of Schools conduct annual performance
evaluations of voucher schools. The only requirement is an evaluation
of the program, to be submitted to the legislature in the year 2000.
Regulations governing private schools are so weak that it is harder to
get a liquor license or set up a corner gas station in Milwaukee than
it is to start a private school.
One of the fiercest controversies has erupted over special education
students, who account for about 15% of Milwaukee public school students.
The voucher schools argue that, even when such students are enrolled in
a private school (which the schools help ensure doesn't happen too often),
it is up to the public schools to provide any special services such students
may need.
The voucher schools even balked at a letter from Wisconsin's Department
of Public Instruction this summer asking that the schools comply with
federal and state protections on issues such as free speech, due process,
and non-discrimination based on gender, marital status, pregnancy, and
sexual orientation. (The legislation only mandates non-discrimination
on the basis of race, color or national origin)
Adding religious schools to the mix only complicates the legal questions.
Religious schools can legally fire teachers who violate religious principles
-- such as gay teachers, divorced teachers, or teachers who support the
right to abortion -- and expel students who support them.
Will religious schools who receive vouchers also be able to teach that
the non-baptized will go to hell, that the Jews killed Christ, or that
there is no God but Allah?
What about desegregation? One of Milwaukee's dirty little secrets is
that white parents often use private schools to get around desegregation
efforts. In Milwaukee, for example, the public schools are 60% African-American.
At Divine Savior/Holy Angels and at Pius XI, two prominent Catholic high
schools in the city, only 3% of the students are African American. Nor
are those figures atypical.
One of the greatest ironies is that at a time when the state is requiring
more accountability from public schools, the private voucher schools can
ignore the call for standards. In Wisconsin, as in most states, private
schools are exempt from statewide standardized tests. After all, the argument
goes, they are "private" schools.
Up to 15,000 children in Milwaukee will be able to use public money to
attend private and religious schools beginning in the fall of 1998. With
the voucher worth almost $5,000 per pupil, that means that as much as
$75 million in taxpayers' money will be taken from the Milwaukee public
schools and given to schools that do not have to meet minimum requirements
of public accountability.
It may be legal. But is it a good idea? Think about it. Vouchers are
coming your way.
Barbara Miner is managing editor of Rethinking Schools, a grass-roots
education reform newspaper based in Milwaukee, and co-editor of Selling
Out Our Schools: Vouchers, Markets, and the Future of Public Education,
an anthology of articles on vouchers. Available for $5 + $3.50 S&H.
Contact: Rethinking Schools, 1001 E. Keefe Ave. Milwaukee, WI 53212. 1-800-669-4192.
Posted July 6, 1998; Updated August 31, 1998