Private School Vouchers: Bad for Education in Our Community

Governor Walker Supports Vouchers

The Appleton Post-Crescent (January 31, 2013) reported that Gov. Scott Walker is in favor of expanding the voucher program that allows families to use public money to attend private schools.  Since this is going to be an important issue this year we should understand what it can and cannot do in our community. What is the purpose of the voucher program?  Can the use of public money to support private education provide a solution to the problems of education in our community?

Will the Program Help Education the Fox Cities?

There are 12 private schools in the Fox Valley that offer secondary education through the 12^th grade.  They are listed in the table below.  (The table includes all schools within 25 miles of ZIP Code 54911 according to Private School Review, and on-line source of information about private schools.)

Private High Schools in the Fox Valley

School Name	Location	Enrollment
The Academy of the Fox Cities	Appleton	68
Xavier High School	Appleton	585
Fox Valley Lutheran High School	Appleton	611
St Mary Central High School	Neenah	233
Oshkosh Christian School/Valley Christian High School	Oshkosh	204
Lourdes High School	Oshkosh	291
Wyldewood Christian School	Oshkosh	37
Beth Haven Academy	Green Bay	17
Starr Academy	New London	37
Notre Dame de la Baie Academy	Green Bay	718
Adventist Junior Academy	Green Bay	39
Bay City Baptist School	Green Bay	84
TOTAL		2924

 As you can see, the total enrollment of all of the private high schools in the Fox Valley is 2924 students.  This contrasts with a total enrollment of 12,925 students in all high schools in the Fox Cities according to data on the website high-schools.com.  It is easy to see that the private schools in our area could not possibly enroll any large percentage of the high school students in our area.  The private schools would be overwhelmed.  So, under the voucher program, most of our students will have to remain in our public high schools, and we will have to educate them adequately and prepare them for the world in which they will live and the jobs by which they live.  The voucher program cannot do this for us.  In fact, the voucher program will make it harder for us to educate our children because the voucher program will drain money from the public schools – money that might have been used to make the public schools better for everyone.

Vouchers in the Fox Cities Will Give Money to Religious Schools

In addition, we can see that almost all of the schools listed above are religious institutions. (The one exception is The Academy of the Fox Cities, which enrolls only 68 students.)  A religious school considers the inculcation of religious values to be an important part of its mission.  Parents who send their children to a religious school do so at least in part because they wish their children to learn those values.   

There is nothing wrong with a school’s inculcating religious values.  A religious group is certainly entitled to establish schools for the purpose of inculcating the group’s values, and it is equally the right of parents to send their children to those schools.  However, it is no part of the duty of the state of Wisconsin to support such schools.  We provide public schools which are very carefully nonsectarian in order to provide our children with the knowledge and skills that they will need and to teach them the basic values of democratic society in the United States.  Religious schools are private precisely because their missions are not compatible with the limitations that we impose on our public institutions, which must not support specific religious groups.  If our state were to give money to support religious schools, it would be violating our most basic political traditions concerning the separation of church and state.

The Voucher Program Will Not Increase Choices For Parents

Governor Walker says that we need the voucher program to provide parents with choices about where to send their children to school, but that is not true.  Of the schools shown in the table above, 6 large schools enroll 92% of the students (2645 out of 2924), and all of the large private schools have financial aid for parents who cannot afford the tuition.  Fox Valley Lutheran High School says on its web site, "No student will be denied a Christian high school education due to financial need!"  This means that parents already have choices.  They do not need the voucher program. So, what is its real purpose?

The Real Purpose of Vouchers is to Take Money From the Public Schools

The real purpose of the voucher program is to reduce the funds available for public education by funneling the money to private, religious schools.  Reducing the size of all government functions is the main goal of the Radical Right. This goal was most famously expressed by Grover Norquist (of the “no tax” pledge), when he said, "I don't want to abolish government.  I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."  Governor Walker and the other radical rightists in Madison have already made large cuts in state aid to local school systems, and the governor is planning to make a large part of those cuts permanent by using this year’s budget surplus to fund cuts in state income taxes.  Now, he wants to take some of the remaining funds and give them to private, religious schools.

In short, we should oppose the voucher program because:

·         The voucher program will not help parents or children, because they already have choices.

·         The voucher program will harm our public schools and reduce our ability to educate our children.

·         Vouchers for religious schools go against our basic tradition of the separation of church and state.

Our public schools are one of the real glories of our community. They are among the best in the country. We have to do what we can to preserve and improve them.  Call your representatives now and let them know that you oppose giving our community’s public education’s funds to sectarian, religious institutions.