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A World of Choice in Education
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10655 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1993 |
5,442 Words |
| Author
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Clifford F. Thies
Clifford F. Thies is Durell Professor of Money, Banking, and
Finance at Shenandoah University, Winchester, Virginia. |
In many places in the United States, parents can choose among public, Catholic, evangelical Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and secular private schools for their children. This right has been affirmed by no less an authority than the U.S. Supreme Court, which, in 1925, in overturning an attempt by the state of Oregon to prohibit private and religious schools, declared that the child "is not the mere creature of the state."
And so it is in just about every other democratic country. Except that there is a difference. In most other democratic countries, parents who choose to send their children to religious or private schools do not have to fully pay a second time in tuition for what they have already paid in taxes. Parental choice in education is not biased by the funding of some, but not other, schools. Parents of modest means are not forced to weigh the sacrifices in family budget and educational quality against the value they place in sending their children to schools that affirm the faith and morals taught at home.
Explicit protection of parental choice in education is incorporated into many state and national constitutions. Article 42 of the constitution of the Republic of Ireland, for example, declares the family to be the "natural educator" of the child and "guarantees to respect the inalienable right and duty of parents to educate their children." Article 23 of the Dutch constitution guarantees government spending on an equal basis for all schools chosen by parents meeting regulatory standards.
The Alberta Act of 1905, whereby that province joined the Canadian confederation, establishes a right to Catholic or Protestant schools with funding equal to that provided to public schools. Article 27 of the Spanish constitution guarantees the freedom of parents to choose the religious and moral education of their children.
The United States is just about the only democracy today that does not support parental choice in education. The United States, the most diverse and religious country in the world, has the most uniform system of education and the fewest children receiving religious instruction. And, not coincidentally, the United States, which spends the most money on education per public school student, scores the lowest in internationally administered tests of knowledge and reasoning ability.
In Scotland, the first public schools were founded in 1872 and were administered by the established (Presbyterian) church. Forty-six years later,
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