Religion & Law

Rob's post and Charles Murray make an important point -- the reason why school choice is not only justifiable, but also just, is not because school choice (if correctly implemented) can cause higher test scores.  Two quick points:  First, the "take away" from Milwaukee should not be "voucher-using kids at religious schools get pretty much the same test scores that they would get in the public school," but "isn't it telling, about the public schools, that voucher-using kids at religious schools get the same test scores that they would have at a public school, given that these religious schools achieve their results with much, much less money and far fewer resources!"  Second, there are studies of other choice programs that do show test-score gains for school-choice beneficiaries, especially among African-American children.

That said, and again, Rob is right:  the reason(s) to support choice sound more in religious freedom, educational pluralism, parental empowerment, and basic fairness (i.e., the public should be willing to help pay for the public, "secular" good that religious schools provide).  Joseph Viteritti, Jack Coons, and others have been emphasizing this for years.  I tried to flesh out this point too, a few years ago, in this essay, "The Right Questions About School Choice:  Education, Religious Freedom, and the Common Good."  Here's a bit, from that essay: 

That the Constitution permits us to experiment with such programs . . . does not mean that we should. We should ask, then, what reasons there are for enhancing parents? ability to direct and control their children?s education? This question invites, I think, not only numbers-crunching and data-grinding on the nuts-and-bolts of education reform?though such crunching and grinding is needed, too?but also deeper reflections about the purpose of education, the authority of the state, the integrity of the family, the demands of pluralism, political liberalism, and religious freedom, and the dignity of the human person.

 

[W]ho should decide where, what, and from whom children will learn? Is the education of young people the prerogative of the contemporary liberal state, and its purpose the inculcation of government-approved dispositions, attitudes, and beliefs?  Or is education an obligation, vocation, and right of parents, one that is inextricably linked to religious liberty and political pluralism? Is the point of choice-based reform simply to spur improvements in government schools through competition? Is it merely to more effectively and efficiently deliver data and transmit ?skill sets?? Or is it to make good on the obligation of public authority to promote the authentic common good?