Will taxpayers end up footing the bill for religious schools? Voucher schemes in several state threaten to divert public money from education budgets into the coffers of sectarian groups. Under the ruse of "scholarships" and "parental choice," the integrity of public education is being eroded.

n Pennsylvania, Texas, Florida and elsewhere, a new effort is underway to enact state level voucher legislation which critics say will end up putting religious schools on the public assistance roles. The scheme involves the use of tuition vouchers, rebates or tax credits which permit parents to choose whether to keep their children in public schools, or use the money for private and religious institutions. The vouchers are sometimes described with euphemisms such as "opportunity scholarships."

    The road to enact voucher legislation on capitol hill has been a rough one; what appears to have fueled the current wave of state voucher proposals has been frustration with Washington, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court's decision last year to uphold a Milwaukee voucher program. In JACKSON v. BENSON, Wisconsin's highest court ruled that public funding of sectarian education did not violate the state's prohibition against support of religious institutions. Instead, justices attempted to argue that the voucher program was what the Freedom Forum described as "a neutral educational assistance program that did not amount to government advancement of religious education."

   Several states are now entertainment various voucher proposals:

TEXAS

   The Lone Star State currently has the most ambitious voucher programs and legislation. Earlier this month, Sen. Teel Bivins (R-Amarillo) unveiled what the San Antonio Express newspaper called "an unexpectedly ambitious bill to send poor children to private schools..." It would provide up to 143,000 students in several Texas counties "scholarships" of nearly $4,000 for private and religious education.

    The Texas proposal reflects the growing clout of the "private" voucher movement in Texas orchestrated by San Antonio multimillionaire Dr. James Leininger. He is the moving force behind an ambitious $50,000,000 private effort which is described as a "pied piper" in luring families away from the public school system. Critics say that the net effect is to gut the enrollment of cash-strapped public schools, thus penalizing families which do not receive the "opportunity" grants. Under the aegis of the Children's Educational Opportunity Foundation, San Antonio's Edgewood School District has become a test area for the program. After the ten-year program got underway, observers noted that the city's Roman Catholic parochial school system was the leading beneficiary. Local public schools stand to lose millions of dollars in badly needed funding due to the enrollment decline.

   Texas Governor George Bush, an unabashed voucher booster, has already thrown his weight behind the latest proposal. The bill originated in the State Senate Education Committee, where going into the 1998 election, seven of the nine sitting members had received political contributions from Leininger.

    Ironically, the latest and perhaps most ambitious Texas voucher scheme is being promoted amidst a growing scandal involving financial insolvency of more than a dozen independent charter schools. Education Commissioner Dr. Michael Moses told State BOE officials recently that some schools have not been paying their teachers, or contributing to the state's retirement fund as required. Texas has 88 charter schools in operations with more than 15,000 students enrolled. Charter schools receive public funding, but are free from most of the state administration and regulation; critics warn that charter school programs are a "gateway" towards the more blatant funding of religious institutions, and that often churches and sectarian groups use the charter program for their own benefit. Despite the problems, the State Board of Education has voted 8-7 to expand the program.

FLORIDA

    Like its counterpart in Texas, a Florida educational voucher program would provide parents with a "state-funded scholarship for students for their children to attend a public or private school of their choice." Critics warn that it's another disingenuous attempt to subsidize private and religious schools at the expense of the nonsectarian public education system.

    The Florida constitution may prove to be an obstacle, unless justices there -- who will probably end up hearing a legal challenge to the voucher system -- use the fuzzy thinking of their Wisconsin brethren. The constitution states: "No revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution."

    The plan has the full support of Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of Texas Gov. George Bush.

    Efforts to pass vouchers in Florida supplement not only the push for charter schools, but another program that put a "values" curriculum in public schools which is known as "Character First!" It also shows the synchronicity between vouchers and extremist religious organizations which have established a thriving network of sectarian schools and so-called "Christian academies." In many cases, the curriculum in these schools teaches youngsters that evolution is a false doctrine, and implements a stern religious behavior code.

    A bill to fund the program to the tune of up to seven million dollars in tax money passed unanimously last year in the state legislature, and will likely be on the governor's desk for signing in 1999. The Character First! program is published by the Character Training Institute (CTI), and offshoot of the Chicago-based Institute of Basic Life principles. According to the New Times paper of Palm Beach, IBLP "is the brainchild of a 64-year old evangelical Christian guru named Bill Gothard, who boasts some 2.5 million "alumni" of his Bible-based seminars, and he promises to give the world a 'new approach to life.'"

    Along with the Florida voucher proposals cheered on by Gov. Jeb Bush, bills to institute Gothard's "Character First!" regiment in public schools -- supposedly sans over religious references to Jesus Christ and religion -- have been introduced by State Rep. Tracy Stafford and Sen. Howard Forman, Democrats from Broward County.

    Public funding for charter schools has already attracted controversy, especially when the funds are used to promote religious education which has an extreme, even cult-like agenda. An investigation conducted by the New Times newspaper and published in its issue of February 18-24, 1999 ("Little Soldiers in the Culture War") showed how taxpayer money is being used to produce a generation of obedient, Christianized clones. In one classroom at the Charter School of Excellence, the uniformed children are led in song with reminiscent of a scene from Orwell's "1984," or a North Korean youth rally.

"Obedience is listening attentively,
Obedience will take instructions joyfully,
Obedience heeds wishes of authorities,
Obedience will follow orders instantly.
For when I am busy at my work or play,
And someone calls my name, I'll answer right away!
"I'll be ready with a smile to go the extra mile
As soon as I can say 'Yes, sir!' 'Yes, Ma'am!
Hup, two, three!"

PENNSYLVANIA, ARIZONA

    At a recent news conference, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge boosted his "academic recovery" program that would provide "scholarships" for use at private and religious schools in Philadelphia and six other state school districts. Constitutional problems abound for this program, as well. The Pennsylvania Constitution enjoins the use of taxes directed for public education to "be appropriated or used for the support of any sectarian school."

    In Arizona, the House of representatives has narrowly approved a voucher scheme that also threatens to funnel tax revenue to private and religious schools. A spokeswoman for the state Civil Liberties Union noted that more than 80% of the private schools in the state happen to be Roman Catholic. Eleanor Eisenberg opined, "It is not the intent of the Arizona legislature to not support religious education (sic)."

COLORADO

   Along with voucher proposals, some Colorado legislators are "pushing the envelope" and calling for the dismantling of the public education system, or even an "exodus" of students to Christian religious schools. The Separation of School and State Alliance seeks to end government funding of grade and high school education; the founder of the Alliance, Marshall Fritz, told the Freedom Forum that he believes that public schools promote "the unimportance of God." Another group seeking to dismantle the nonsectarian schools is Exodus 2000, which is calling upon Christian families to pull their children out of the public schools in favor of home schooling or other religious training. "The typical Christian family in America's heartland has been suffering for years," declares a posting on the Exodus 2000 web site, "because of the larger Church and her leaders have committed to the proposition that the public school system is an acceptable alternative for the education and nurture of Christian children (sic)."

    Founded in 1997, the Exodus group has framed what it terms "The Emergency Education Resolution" which "asks American leaders, educators, businessmen and clergy to admit or deny the horrible truth about today's US public education: that the system is currently unconstitutional, is not reformable, has no Biblical mandate, and has become a tool of statist social engineers..."

    Endorsers of Exodus 2000 include D. James Kennedy of the Coral Gables Ministry in Florida, and Tim LaHaye, a founder of the defunct Moral Majority group and author of a best-selling trilogy about a coming apocalypse. James Dobson of Focus on the Family is also reportedly supporting the Exodus 2000.

NEW YORK

    New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is still promoting vouchers as a way to solve what he says are problems with the public schools. In the past, Giuliani has proposed turning over city facilities to the local Archdiocese for use in its parochial school system, and endorsed a plan to send students to religious schools at public expense. In his State of the City address in January, Giuliani declared that he wanted to establish a voucher program in one of the city's 32 school districts similar to the Milwaukee program.

    News reports indicate that Giuliani has locked horns with Chancellor Rudy Crew and the Board of Education over the voucher scheme, and may be forced to back away from the "scholarship" proposal. A story in a recent New York Times suggests that the mayor lobbied Board members unsuccessfully, and that Dr. Crew threatened to resign if there was even a vote on the voucher proposal. According to the Times, a temporary cease-fire has been agreed to, and the Mayor "retains the right to revive" the voucher scheme any time in the future.

    Rather than promote religion in the public schools, a feat that would require circumventing numerous US Supreme Court decisions going back over half-a-century, religious groups instead are promoting a less direct strategy. Rather than "religionize" classrooms, the voucher system, through its use of public aid and private "scholarships" would essentially deconstruct public education in America. Critics warn that draining money from cash-strapped public school systems will not solve the problem of large classrooms, or the fact that unlike religious schools, the public system must accept a wider range of youngsters into its classes. Exodus 2000 and other calls to abandon the public schools also mesh with a wider cultural trend enunciated recently by social conservative Paul Weyrich. He has called upon fundamentalists and evangelicals to secede from civic life, and instead depend on a network of religious schools, churches and similar institutions.

   Sooner or later, the U.S. Supreme Court may have to look at the issue of vouchers. Voucher supporters point to the Wisconsin case, JACKSON v. BENSON, as inspiration, and say that this establishes the constitutionality of similar programs. Opponents insist that the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION v NYQUIST controls whether or not vouchers are legal, however. In NYQUIST, justices ruled that state support of Parochial schools violated the First Amendment's establishment clause, unless the funding had a clearly secular purpose, lacked the primary effect of advancing religion, and avoided "excessive entanglement" between church and state. In WOMAN v. WALTER (1977), the high court also disapproved of using government funds to transport Parochial school students on field trips.

    But even the high court's record in this area has been chaotic and patchy. In COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY v. REGAN (1980), justices upheld the use of taxpayer funds to religious and private schools for specific activities such as testing and taking attendance rolls. In 1983, Justice William Rhenquist, writing for the majority in MUELLER v. ALLEN, declared that such benefits to parents which accrued from public funding in areas such as transportation, tax deductions for tuition, and textbook payments did not impermissibly promote religion despite the ruling in NYQUIST.

   Atheists and secularists cannot automatically depend on either state supreme courts or the federal high court to stop the juggernaut of public funding of religion. Indeed, the next President could control the complexion of the U.S. Supreme Court in appointing as many as three of the nine justices. Vouchers remain a threat not only to public education, but to the wall of separation which for generations has prevented the more blatant funding of religious institutions and schools.

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