Administration Proposals That Could Leave More Children Behind:

Private School Vouchers

         Members of the Citizens’ Commission represent a diverse cross-section of American leadership and have not taken a formal position in support of or in opposition to private school vouchers.  The Commissioners are united, however, in their commitment to quality, diverse schools and to public school choice.[13]  We have supported, for example, providing parents a right to transfer their children out of persistently failing schools and have long supported magnet schools and a range of other measures to provide racially diverse and desegregated schools.

            The President’s proposal to provide vouchers to parents of students in schools that have not made adequate progress or that are deemed “unsafe,” however, raises a number of civil rights concerns that the President and other proponents have yet to adequately address, including:

• Establishment and free exercise of religion.  These principles may be at risk by the mismatch between a growing diverse student population and a narrower range of religious private schools. 

• Affordability to poor parents.  The proponents do not address how the poorest parents will be able to make up the difference between the cost of private school tuition, or other procured services, and the amount of the voucher.

• Civil rights protections.  The proposal does not address whether and to what extent parochial schools and other private service providers will (or can) be expected to adhere to important civil rights laws, such as those protecting students and staff against discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, and disability.  What, for example, will be the responsibility of private schools to enroll children with disabilities whose education requires higher than average expenditures?

•  Accountability.  Very little attention has been paid to the special problems that may be involved in holding private schools accountable for student progress.

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