School Vouchers

Statement of Sanford Cloud, Jr.
President and CEO
The National Conference for Community and Justice

September 5, 2002

Education is the cornerstone to the success of each individual in our nation and the hallmark of our democracy. A quality education coupled with school performance often sets one's life path: where one lives, works, plays, and raises one's own children. The greatness of our nation's public school system is that each child is offered a free education regardless of economic status, color, religion, culture, sexual orientation, gender, or ethnicity. This ideal is being compromised through school voucher legislation.

The voucher system allows parents of school-aged children to use the funds spent on their child's education at a public school (approximately $2,500 - $5,000) toward tuition at a non-public school. The funds are presented as a government "voucher" which can then be used at another academic institution including parochial schools. The voucher is often far less than the cost of tuition at private schools. According to the Anti-Defamation League, because the dollars allocated through vouchers are so small, and because parochial schools are generally less expensive than private schools, a large number of vouchers go toward the payment of religious institutions' tuition. Moreover, vouchers drain funds out of an already struggling public school system where most children are educated.

According to RAND, school vouchers challenge the traditional notions of public and private education by establishing public funding, and usually public regulation, of schools that are privately operated rather than under the direct control of a local school board. This can be problematic, as noted by the AFL-CIO, because private schools are not accountable to the public which translates into a lack of accountability of these public funds.

The school voucher system compromises our ideals of providing a free quality education to all, and to the founding principle of our nation: the separation of church and state. The United States was built on the principle of the separation of church and state which has allowed the religious diversity of our nation to flourish. Our founders created such a division to protect individuals from undue governmental interference, to not subject minority religions to government scrutiny, and to insulate the government from influence of any religion.

The National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) maintains that under no circumstance should the principle of religious freedom be compromised in our nation. School vouchers endanger such liberties because they require taxpayers to pay for the religious education of others.

Proponents of the voucher system declare that voucher programs allow students, especially poor students, the opportunity to attend better schools and experience more academic success. However, the academic studies on the voucher system are mixed. There remains limited evidence that the voucher system fulfills its goals and objectives. In fact, the U.S. General Accounting Office has reported that state evaluations of the voucher system found little to no difference between the academic achievement of voucher students and public school students in Cleveland and Milwaukee where such programs have been implemented. Moreover, according to a working paper produced by Princeton University, smaller classes outweigh the voucher system in raising students' test scores.

Our nation's leaders should be dedicated to improving our current public school system rather than compromising it with an unjustified approach that will create further divisions in our society. They need to be focused on creating a quality public school education system that is offered to all children regardless of their demographic profile. The real issue is that there continues to be bias, bigotry, and racism against many students of color in the public school system. Vouchers do not contribute to addressing the proliferation of such challenges in our school systems and the impact on our children, rather, they are merely being transferred to a different venue of inequity.

NCCJ strongly supports our nation's public education system and challenges all leaders of this country to improve it. Voters in California and Michigan as well as approximately 25 other state legislatures have rejected school vouchers, and we all need to continue to fight against replacing our public schools. This can occur by continuing to promote the importance of education to children, hiring more quality teachers, empowering parents to become more active in their child's education, improving school standards, and holding local government and education leaders more accountable.

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