It’s safe to tie private school vouchers directly to white evangelicalism, but very few people (that I’ve met) inside the church see this policy as a threat to public schooling. Instead proponents market the policy as a value-add, an extra option for those whom the public school is not a “perfect fit.” So let’s discuss:
Why can’t we have both private school vouchers AND strong public schools?
This seems to be the claim that many states like Georgia have landed on: we can have well-resourced public schools and private school choice concurrently. I fight this line of thinking out of hand, first because Georgia (like most states) has disinvested from public schools at such a rate that any talk of “well-resourced public schools” is purely speculative. To wit: in 2021 I sat in a committee meeting where lawmakers had the audacity to tell school leaders that their schools were over-funded in the middle of a pandemic at the tail end of $10 billion in budget cuts over 20 years. What evidence do I have that both can exist side-by-side when those states that have passed the most ambitious private school vouchers are also those that have invested the least in their public school systems (See: Florida and Arizona)?
When states pass voucher bills, it begins the death of a thousand cuts for the schools where the vast majority of kids still attend. Students don’t leave in neat little buckets, but are evenly distributed across the school. Losing one student here and two students there leaves all the costs in place for the public school with just less state funding. Teacher and leader salaries (the largest school expenditure) remain, and you cannot cut off three seats of the school bus or turn down the air conditioner by three student’s amount. The end result is just a less funded public school so that the three wealthiest kids can drive to a private school.
But ok, let’s enter that imaginary world where the state has met its obligation to provide an adequate education to all students in a free public school system while also protecting those schools who would struggle with enrollment decline. I would still have discomfort with the public financing private schools because of my deep respect for the separation of church and state. I’ve already talked about the limitations on a private school system to educate poor students, but what about how they educate the apostate? Private school vouchers only make sense for evangelical public policy if Christian schools would be a major benefactor of the public funds. Would our fellow Christians be pushing for vouchers if most private schools in the state were run by Scientologists?
In the current context where many kids take vouchers to Christian schools we also must grapple with the uncomfortable situation where a child is graded or served based on their ability to adhere to the Bible. I’m afraid that vouchers financially incentivize schools to disguise the aspects of their school that do not fare well in the public sphere. Parents and children might then enter a school where they don’t realize that having premarital sex is grounds for expulsion, for example. Tying a child’s education to their sexuality, gender identity, or overall morality can have devastating consequences for the child and the Church.
Not all private schools are like this, of course. There are many that joyfully provide a quality education to all children (whose parents can afford it). I continue to think about what safeguards could be given to the private school sector to ensure inclusion for all children and I just end up by creating public schools again.
Let me be clear that I’m not asking Christians to cede the public sphere to whatever prevailing concepts are in fashion. On the contrary, I believe that vouchers as a policy in the United States are an entitled retreat where the recipient is “taking his ball and going home.” Here again I take guidance from the prophet Jeremiah to exiles in Babylon. Instead of hastening the fragmentation of our society, what if we could be present and humble? I think to the discourse around sex in the 90s that elevated personal freedom and expression. Christians have been (rightly) criticized for a sexual ethic that conflates a woman’s worth with her virginity, but a big part of the Christian stance on sex was that it was more important than it was being treated in popular culture. It is fascinating to watch the cultural conversation shift in the last few years to treating sex as sacred. We need to be a part of public institutions, but we should also let go of the notion that if everyone doesn’t do what we say then we’ll destroy the whole thing. Could the realization that 1) public schools are not ours and 2) we need to be a part of them, help to shape a public Christian who loves her neighbor with truth and love? I pray that it does.
Let’s talk about the impact of this both/and argument on institutional decisions. Not only do private school vouchers incentivize individual family’s worst instincts—to run away from people who do not look or think like us—but allow for a dereliction of the state’s duty as well. As I wrote above, there seems to be a connection between a state that underfunds public schools and willingly gives funds to private school education. If you’re a politician, why would you raise taxes to give schools money to educate kids in poverty if you can instead propose a voucher and tell those families “good luck?”
Maybe you read that and grimace at the idea that the state has any duty in the upbringing of your child. The churches that I’ve been a part of seem to idolize the parents who can make the most convincing case that they have zero need for any levels of government. Perhaps due to my time in state government (five years in the Georgia Department of Education and five more advocating in the Georgia legislature), it’s clear to me that we all benefit from a common standard of life with public resources and state enforcement. For instance, it is my responsibility to make sure that my kids have plenty to eat and drink. I rely upon, however, standards of water quality that were passed and enforced years before I was born. So much of what libertarians call “government schools” are an extension of the rights that the public jointly decided are owed to all children.
One area that highlights this concept is students with disabilities. These children have had a right to a full public education for fewer than 50 years. Schools pay significantly to provide an adequate education for, say, a child with multiple sclerosis. On more than one occasion I’ve heard school folks bemoan the burden that a student with a particular disability has created on their school budget. To compound things: these students perform the worst on state tests, are least likely to graduate and are the least likely to bring a school accolades.
Now imagine a world where the public school institution can encourage parents to unenroll their child with disabilities to take a voucher to a private school. That school’s test scores and graduation rate would go up, it would free up resources for the kids who win awards, etc. Even though I regularly advocate for public schooling I do not think public schools employees are better than those in private schools or parents who homeschool. I’m a fan of how I heard one veteran lawmaker refer to himself: I’m a public school advocate, not an acolyte. I can say confidently that the only thing keeping public schools providing any quality of service to these students is government compulsion. The strengths of public education in this regard are in our ability to expect justice, not sympathy.
As Christians we should push for justice for all children’s schooling, not advance policies that individualize educational welfare. When we advocate for universal assurances of safety and quality, we reflect the vision within the Lord’s prayer: “…on earth as it is in Heaven.”
-Stephen