February 20, 2002
Cleveland, Ohio, is currently embroiled in controversy: Is its school-voucher program constitutional? Does it violate the separation of church and state? Does it discriminate?
Yes, no and no.
All right, I'll get to the second question first, since it's the cause for the first. Do vouchers violate separation of church and state? Here's why they don't. Vouchers are simply a check, given to the parents of any child, for a portion of the taxes that would have been used in that child's education. Now, reread that sentence, and tell me where it mentions religion. You're absolutely right; it doesn't.
Now, vouchers can be used at religious schools, and those schools are predominantly Catholic. But they don't have to be -- any religion can set up a school, and as long as it meets the requirements set by the state it'll do just fine. Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, you name it. If it teaches what it needs to teach for the state to consider it a school, it's fine.
You see, chruch-state separation doesn't mean "endorsement of no religion" -- it means "endorsement of no religion over the others". And since any religion has simply to get a school certified, and since no preference is given to whether a private, non-religious school gets the money vs. a parochial school, no one religion is favored. Therefore, church-state is satisfied and vouchers are constitutional. End of report.
Now, the discrimination bit. This is utterly ridiculous. Private schools have a lot of white kids. This is because black people unfortunately tend to make less money, on average, than white people. They simply couldn't afford to send their kids to private schools. Now they can. The first couple years of the voucher program, the number of students opting for it were overwhelmingly black (and other minorities).
The only people being discriminated against are the white suburbanites who don't want "those people" in their kids' school. Well, fuck the suburbanites. Give those kids a chance to learn out of books that were made after World War II and in an environment where they won't get shot at on the playground, and they just might break that cycle of black people forming a majority of the underclass.
And what about the kids who stay in the public schools? Well, there are three types:
Can't Even Learn in a Public School This probably means that the child is mentally retarded. No, seriously: the ninth-grade proficiency test actually had a question about parallel lines. And people took that test nine times and still failed. If your child can't figure out which of these sets of lines are parallel ( + ) ( X ) ( || ) ( |\ ) then he should be checked for mental problems.
Disruptive and Dangerous Hey, your kid doesn't want to learn and you don't want to help him, there's nothing I can do about it. But I'm glad the kids who don't want to be the jizz-mopper at the local peep show don't have to deal with him any more.
Stupid Parents "Well, I went to a public school and turned out OK." Sure you did. But your public school wasn't turning out an clearly inferior product 30 years ago. They've been underfunded for a decade, the crime rate at the inner city schools would make Detroit blush, and the buildings are falling apart. Why would you subject your child to something like that when you can get money from the city to send him to a real school? Don't worry though; I'm sure when your kid's a janitor making $20k a year, he'll thank you for making a political statement that kept him from working at Microsoft.
So, to sum up, let those kids learn, for Christ's sake. Nobody benefits from having a large segement of the population leave off with a sixth-grade education.
