|
|
 |
|
 |
 |
| SCHOOL VOUCHERS | |
 September 2, 1999 
|
||
|
|
The two sides involved in Cleveland's landmark school voucher case discuss the issue with Elizabeth Farnsworth, after a background report.
|
|
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And for more on school vouchers in Cleveland and elsewhere, we turn to two people who have been involved in this and other similar cases. Nadine Strossen is president of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Clint Bolick is vice president and director of litigation at the Institute for Justice. Clint Bolick, how important is this Cleveland case for the school voucher movement and why?
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Mr. Bolick, your institute is one of the groups appeal the injunction, right, that decision should some soon? CLINT BOLICK: Yes, we immediately appealed to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. We're still waiting for a ruling there. Obviously one way or the other we still have a long way to go but - quite frankly -- this case could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court where we hope the court will remove the constitutional clout from school choice once and for all. |
 |
||||||||||||||||||
| Looking back to "the framers" | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Nadine Strossen, how do you see the importance of the Cleveland case?
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Ms. Strossen, do you agree with Mr. Bolick this is likely to go to the Supreme Court? NADINE STROSSEN: It has to go to the Supreme Court eventually, because the lower courts are so split as to the underlying constitutional principles, that's why we see a backing and forthing among the courts. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Bolick, where does this fit into the national picture, not case by case, but what has happened in the courts overall with the school vouchers in other places?
NADINE STROSSEN: I disagree with that. CLINT BOLICK: Obviously but we're very confident that the court will up hold the program. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Ms. Strossen, before I hear your disagreement, Mr. Bolick, how many children are involved in the voucher programs in the country right now?
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Ms. Strossen, go ahead with your disagreement. |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||
| Whose money, whose choice? | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
NADINE STROSSEN: I totally disagree with Mr. Bolick's assessment of
the Supreme Court's record on this issue. In fact, one consistent theme
throughout all of the court's ruling has been that a central purpose
of the establishment clause in the First Amendment is to prohibit any
government funding of any religious institution. And as was so well
CLINT BOLICK: In both Milwaukee and Cleveland the evidence is very powerful that the performance does improve for the kids in the program. In the Cleveland public schools, those schools have not met a single one of the fourteen performance criteria set forth by the state for public schools. Now, on the private schools the kids' math and reading scores are boosted already. But, beyond that, the effect on the public schools is very positive. We've seen that the competition and the ability of parents to leave a failing school and take some of their money with them, that has shaken the public school bureaucracy and has induced long overdue reform efforts. In Florida, which is the first state in the nation to offer a money-back guarantee on public schools, if the public schools fail you can have your money back and go to a better public school or to a private school, already we're seeing administrators, for example, in Hillsboro County offering to rebate part of their salaries if their schools fail. This is the kind of reform that is long overdue and it's also why this program does not violate the Constitution because the primary effect is education, not religion. |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||
| Effects on student performance | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
NADINE STROSSEN: There has been a real battle of the experts. In fact the official studies that were commissioned under the Wisconsin and the Ohio legislation to look at the impact of the voucher program showed no discernible improvement on the part of voucher students and to the contrary, public schools that had special programs such as reducing class size, in fact those students did as well or better than the voucher students. So the jury is still out on that. The fact remains, though, that we may not violate the Constitution in order to improve students' education. Students have a constitutional right under the state constitutions throughout this country to an equal and adequate educational opportunity within the public school system. We may not force them into parochial schools by targeting vouchers at monetary levels that, in effect, don't give any choice to poor parents except parochial schools. That coupled with the fact that the vast majority of private schools are parochial schools is, in effect, forcing students into those institutions -- not giving them any real choice. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Mr. Bolick, will next year's presidential election have a big impact on this whole issue? I noticed, for example, that George W. Bush waded into it in Los Angeles today with his speech saying that where public schools are failing federal funds should be available to parents to send their kids to private schools. CLINT BOLICK: That's right. He's doing what his brother did in Florida and basically urging that funds will not go to failing schools anymore. If they cannot improve test scores, the parents are going to be given control over that money to get a good education for their kid. I have to hasten to add that the public schools would do a lot better if the ACLU would stop suing them so much. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I need to just get to Nadine Strossen on the question of whether the presidential election is going to play a big role in this. NADINE STROSSEN: It absolutely is. Education is -- as it ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right. Well, thank you both for being here. CLINT BOLICK: Thanks for having us. |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||
| |||||
 | |||||
| |||||
|
|
| |||
| |||||
| |||||
| Support the kind of journalism done by the NewsHour...Become a member of your local PBS station. | |||||
CLINT
BOLICK, Institute for Justice: I think this is the Lexington and Concord
for the school choice movement. The opposition showed exactly what they
care about, and what they don't care about. They care about preserving
the status quo and they don't care about kids -- in this case 3801 kids
who were wrenched out of the only good schools they have ever attended
literally 17 hours before school was set to start. This effort has backfired
and not only has the judge reversed his order in large part but also
it has galvanized the school choice movement like nothing ever I've
seen before. I think this is going to be a tremendous boost for the
school choice movement. 
NADINE
STROSSEN, American Civil Liberties Union: It's so interesting that Clint
refers to the history of our republic. We think that nothing that is
at stake is nothing less important than one of the very essential founding
principles of our government, that none of us should be forced through
the tax system to finance religious institutions whose beliefs we do
not share. Of course, it is profoundly important that parents have the
right to send their children at their own expense to schools of their
choice including schools that share their religious values. But I can't
imagine anything be more antithetical to the principles of Thomas Jefferson
and other framers than taxpayers being forced to finance religious institutions
with which they do not agree.
CLINT
BOLICK: Well, first, fortunately we're on somewhat of a winning streak.
This judge stands largely alone. As you pointed out earlier, the Ohio
Supreme Court addressed this very same issue in the very context of
this program and four justices agreed with our position and upheld the
program. The Wisconsin and Arizona Supreme Courts have up held school
choice. Only the Maine Supreme Court is on the other side. But even
more importantly, Nadine and I were little kids the last time the U.S.
Supreme Court struck down anything resembling school choice. In that
court the last five rulings since 1983 have affirmed the use of public
funds in religious entities. Nadine, I guess, thinks that the G.I. Bill,
Pell grants are unconstitutional because students, of course, can use
them to pay for religious education or for a secular education. The
same principle applies here. Individuals are choosing where to spend
their money and religious schools are only one of the options that are
available -- charter schools, public schools, nonsectarian schools as
well. So, we're very -
CLINT
BOLICK: It depends on how you really count them. For example, there
are private scholarship programs that enroll tens of thousands of kids,
but right now between the Milwaukee program, the Cleveland program,
and the Florida program, we're talking probably about 10,000 kids right
now. 
explained in the set-up piece, the sectarian schools that are being
funded by taxpayers through these voucher schemes are pervasively sectarian
institutions. Yes, the United States Supreme Court has said if there
is truly a neutral program, such as G.I. benefits, that go to individual
people and particular individuals may choose higher educational institutions
that happen to be religious, the primary benefit is to the individual
recipient. It is completely different when we are talking about massive
schemes for -- in effect -- funding by the government, parochial, secondary
and elementary schools. The Supreme Court has never upheld that kind
of program, and it has said that you may not consider the money to be,
in effect, laundered by going through the charade of passing it through
the parent's pocket en route to the schools. The Supreme Court has never
upheld a program that did not restrict the use of monies that flowed
to secondary and primary schools to strictly secular purposes. Yet under
these voucher programs those funds, taxpayer funds by taxpayers who
don't share the pervasively religious beliefs of the institutions, will
be forced to fund even worship services, even prayer services, completely
contrary to freedom of conscience. 
ELIZABETH
FARNSWORTH: All right. Now, Mr. Bolick, we've been talking about the
First Amendment issues here. There is also a national debate about whether
or not the voucher program improves education for kids in the schools
they go to, the private schools. What is the evidence briefly on that?
ELIZABETH
FARNSWORTH: Ms. Strossen, how do you see the evidence on the effect
on the kids so far? 
