ED OYAMA/Daily Bruin   Mitra Ebadolahi Ebadolahi is a fourth-year international development studies and history student who encourages comments and criticism at mightymousemitra@yahoo.com. Click Here for more articles by Mitra Ebadolahi

Here’s a recipe for disaster: take the perpetually underfunded American public school system and the millions of children who deserve a first-rate education. Add vouchers, stir and watch the entire system implode.



Vouchers are education coupons financed by our tax dollars. But the voucher “solution” is actually riddled with so many problems that the Supreme Court has just opened a case to determine whether or not vouchers are even constitutional.

In some cities, they are awarded to parents who want to send their children to private schools rather than local public schools. For decades, proponents of voucher programs have claimed we should all embrace vouchers rather than wasting tax dollars and confining children in decrepit public schools.

Yet, in reality, America’s education issues are much more complicated. Because education coupons are most often used for tuition at private, religious schools, they have been criticized as a violation of the separation of church and state – the issue now being debated by the Supreme Court.

The primary assumption underlying the pro-voucher agenda is that social services can be improved through privatization. Proponents argue state and federal governments lack the incentive to promote education because there is no competition for students in public schools. Vouchers give parents “choices” by using American tax dollars to fund both public and private schools. As a result, vouchers will force public school administrators to match private school performances or risk losing their students.

Conveniently, voucher advocates leave out any mention of the important problems associated with school coupons. First of all, vouchers detract from education reform. In all major urban areas in the United States, enormous classes, inadequate teaching reserves, and outdated curriculum have created an education system which truly impedes student learning. In Cleveland, for example, students have a one in 14 chance of graduating on time. Students from low income and minority neighborhoods are particularly neglected.

Year after year, education funding is a last priority in state and federal budgets. Without appropriate funds, schools cannot hire enough teachers, build more classrooms, buy updated supplies, nor offer students the individual attention they deserve. Vouchers do nothing to solve these key shortcomings.

Secondly, vouchers undermine public education while bolstering private schools. If we look to private schools as our alternative, we will make quality primary and secondary education available only to a select number of families. Private schools can arbitrarily reject prospective students and discriminate against students with behavioral problems or poor academic performances. These students are then sent back to the very schools the voucher program was supposed to “save” them from.

The third and most complicated issue concerning vouchers is the fact that these coupons siphon tax dollars away from public services and into religious institutions. The First Amendment and the “Establishment Clause” of the U.S. Constitution mandate the separation of church and state – a mandate which is being violated by current voucher programs in Ohio and Wisconsin.

Although vouchers can ostensibly be used in any private school, the majority of American private schools are religious. As a result, most tuition coupons, funded by citizen tax dollars, are used to buy a religious education for many students.

In December 2000, a federal appeals court deemed the voucher program unconstitutional in Cleveland, Ohio, where 99 percent of coupon recipients attend religious schools. As the court report stated, “there is no neutral aid when that aid principally flows to religious institutions; nor is there truly ‘private choice’ when the available choices resulting from the program are predominantly religious” (www.aclu.org.)

The Supreme Court is now deliberating the final word on this ongoing debate.

Vouchers are a perfect Band-Aid to cover the festering wound that is our public education system. But they are just that: a superficial cover-up for a much more complex and urgent problem. In reality, our education woes cannot be solved with a coupon worth a couple thousand dollars per student per year. We need a systematic overhaul of public schools in order to remedy America’s education system.

This overhaul might begin with legislation strictly limiting class sizes and guaranteeing adequate levels of federal funding for public education.

Teaching will be promoted if teachers are guaranteed manageable student numbers and decent salaries with benefits. Furthermore, state and federal governments should place a moratorium on education funding cuts for a definite period of time while searching for ways to implement expanded teaching, tutoring, and mentoring programs in public schools.

American school children deserve more personalized attention and a true social commitment to public education. On these points, as on many others, vouchers simply do not deliver.