A First Report Card On Vouchers

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Still, public school backers seized on the hard numbers in the Indiana study as proof that vouchers can't deliver on their lofty claims. "These results are absolutely astounding," says Richard DeColibus, president of the Cleveland teachers' union. "But no one takes any notice of it because it goes against their preconceived notions that private schools teach better." The fact that the Indiana study didn't give second thoughts to voucher supporters is proof, he says, that their foremost concern is not children, but promoting a conservative education agenda. "Why would they want to expand a system that is demonstrably a failure?" DeColibus asks. "Because it's about ideology."

However, the most troubling aspect of the Cleveland voucher experiment has nothing to do with test scores and everything to do with the danger that vouchers could undermine the role that public schools have played in American life. Public schools have long held the promise of being America's great equalizer, mixing students of different races, classes and religions in a single student body. At their best, public schools have united diverse groups of students, many of them immigrants, by passing on the nation's shared civic heritage, from George Washington to George Washington Carver. Public schools have the ability to teach democracy simply by being open to all children, and regarding them--and their backgrounds and religions--as equally worthy. "Nobody claims private schools can't teach tolerance, mutual respect and nondiscrimination," says Princeton political science professor Amy Gutmann. "But in public schools, they are taught as much by the mixing of students as they are by the curriculum."

But Cleveland's voucher program threatens to replace the single-heritage credo of public schools with a system that teaches one faith in one school and a competing faith in another. That's because the hard truth of the city's voucher program is that the choice it offers parents is mainly a choice of religious schools. The problem is that Cleveland's vouchers are capped at $2,250--not unusual for a voucher, but far too little money to allow real choice in the private school market. A poor parent who wanted to use a voucher at the Hathaway Brown school in suburban Shaker Heights would be out of luck: tuition there costs more than $13,000 in the higher grades. The $2,250 vouchers work for religious schools because they receive charitable contributions from their churches, conduct fund raisers and keep salaries excruciatingly low. Starting pay for a Catholic school teacher in the Cleveland metro area is $16,000, vs. $26,490 in public schools.

Nor can parents use vouchers in suburban public schools. Ohio's voucher law was written to allow vouchers to be used in the suburban schools, but only in those that agreed to take them. Bert Holt, director of Cleveland's voucher program, had high hopes when she made the rounds of suburban school districts to persuade them to sign up. But not one suburb agreed to accept students from the city's heavily poor and minority student population. Result: 80% of Cleveland's vouchers are being used in religious schools.

Metro Catholic Parish school teaches many aspects of the nation's shared civic culture. But what it cannot convey is the American notion that all faiths and creeds are entitled to equal respect. The teachings of Christ infuse the academic environment. Hallways are lined with posters asking, WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? A morning announcement over the p.a. system reminds students of the importance of Lent, and tells them to pray to "the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." And all students, Roman Catholic or not, must participate in Catholic prayer. "We're very up front about the fact that we have a formal religion class every day," says Sister Anne Maline, Metro Catholic's principal. "We pray every day, over the p.a. system and in church, and we ask the parents to sign a contract allowing it."

The Islamic School of Oasis, across town, also requires prayer: Zuhr, a short service, four days a week, and the longer Jumah service on Fridays. The posters here have an Islamic theme, like the MUSLIM CHILD'S ALPHABET, in which each letter has a Muslim reference: A is for Allah and Q is for Qu'ran. "We started as a religious school because the rights of Muslims were not being protected in the public schools," says principal Da'ud Abdul Malik. Before vouchers, about three-fourths of the student body was Muslim. Now, a majority is non-Muslim. But as at Metro Catholic, the religious requirements apply to all.