Catholic
Education
Vouchers?
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus
once said you can never step into the same river twice. If only to prove
ourselves unfettered by the decrees of ancient Greek wags, NCR is once
again leading off its annual Catholic education issue with the subject of
vouchers.
Actually there are many good arguments for revisiting the voucher
issue, including that it’s the most important question of educational
policy to confront either the Catholic church or the country in decades. The
best rationale, however -- at least for a newspaper -- is that there’s
news to report.
For too long, the debate over vouchers has been confined to the
airy realm of hypothesis, always having a “what if” quality, since
we’ve had little experience in this country of how spending public dollars
on religious education at the K-12 level might work.
For the past year, however, the rubber has been meeting the road
in Milwaukee. In that city, in the wake of a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision
that allowed the program to proceed, the state has been giving money to parents
to enroll their children at any of 87 participating schools, including 40
Catholic schools.
It is too early to know if the Milwaukee program is
“working,” at least as measured by standards such as test scores or
graduation rates. But in Erik Gunn’s detailed report, we learn that hard
questions have flared up about the extent to which religious schools can avoid
public policies when they take public money.
Religious schools participating in the Milwaukee vouchers program
have argued that the usual civil rights standards governing public institutions
shouldn’t apply to them. Whether that position is tenable -- either
legally or morally -- remains to be seen.
Gunn also documents some of the more important Catholic players in
the campaign for vouchers in Milwaukee and reports on fissures in the original
coalition that supported the program.
The issues surfaced in Gunn’s reporting ought to provide
additional reasons for the Catholic community to think more deeply about the
voucher idea.
Heidi Schlumpf provides an overview of another challenge facing
Catholic school leaders -- finding and holding onto qualified teachers. Given
the surge in the school-age population expected over the next several years,
demand for teachers is going to grow ever more intense, and Catholic schools
will have to scramble to keep up.
Schlumpf reports on what some Catholic school systems are doing to
get ahead of the problem. She includes some remarkably candid, and hopeful,
words from Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George: “In conscience, I
cannot indefinitely support a system that pays its teachers, on average, only
half of what their peers earn in the government schools,” he said at a
December news conference.
It may be the former teacher in me, but I think that’s one of
the best lines I’ve heard on Catholic education from a bishop in a long
time. Let’s hope George backs up those words -- and that his brother
bishops are moved by his example.
Patricia Lefevere profiles a remarkable teacher from New York and
her equally remarkable program of Holocaust Studies. On a purely pedagogical
level, Dr. Barbara Judge’s interdisciplinary approach, blending art and
history and philosophy, is exciting. As an exercise in understanding and
empathy, her approach is also inspiring. The program could well be a national
model; Judge’s passion certainly should be.
Finally, Daniel Mulhall from the U.S. bishops’ conference
offers an overview of catechesis today. To glean just one idea from his honest,
thoughtful essay, the church obviously has a need for volunteer catechists
willing to pass on the tradition -- warts and all, I might add -- to the next
generation.
It’s an invitation well worth considering.
National Catholic Reporter, March 26,
1999
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