PARTNER PERSPECTIVE

Advancing God’s Kingdom Through School Choice

CAROL CORBETT BURRIS
Executive Director, Network for Public Education

Libertarian economist Milton Friedman proposed the idea of school choice via vouchers in 1955. Friedman believed that the free market should direct schooling (and just about everything else). He believed that Social Security should be shut down because it created welfare dependency, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should be eliminated, and the licensing of doctors should be abolished.

In this video entitled “The Enemies of School Choice,” Friedman claims that if parents were given vouchers to spend on any public or private school, school choice “would solve all of the critical problems” in education. According to Friedman, vouchers would eliminate discipline problems and reduce segregation. He presented no evidence, just claims based on his disdain for any government regulation. He dubbed public schools “government schools,” a term recently revived by both the far right and the religious right. His ultimate goal, which I believe is shared by contemporary school choice leaders, was to eliminate compulsory schooling, thus eliminating the public funding of K-12 education.

Others, most notably former Secretary of Education Betsy De Vos and her husband Richard, embraced school choice not only as means to achieve the goals of libertarianism but also to “advance God’s kingdom” by allowing public dollars to pay tuition to religious schools. The present Supreme Court has helped their cause with two decisions regarding voucher programs.

In 2020, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue overturned that state’s constitutional ban on voucher tax-credit funding to faith-based private schools. The Montana program provides a 100% tax credit for taxpayers who contribute to a “scholarship fund,” which then funnels the money to families for private school tuition.  

This summer, the court overturned a similar prohibition in Maine with its decision in Carson v. Makin. Maine, along with Vermont and New Hampshire, has a town tuition program that assists families with tuition payments if they live in rural areas that do not have a public secondary school. The Court ruled that the program must be open to all private schools, including religious schools. The payment of tuition to schools that teach religion had previously been banned.

As evidenced above, vouchers take various forms—traditional tuition vouchers, tax credit scholarships, and payments to parents on debit cards (Educational Savings Accounts). Some states have several varieties, and, in some cases, they allow parents to combine programs. Whatever form they take, all must now subsidize tuition to religious schools, including the federally funded voucher program mandated by Congress for Washington, D.C.

Nearly all (81%) states with voucher programs allow religious enrollment discrimination in voucher schools, and 74% allow enrollment discrimination based on the LGBTQ status of students and/or families. Florida’s Grace Christian School, which participates in four of the five Florida voucher programs, has made it clear that any student who engages in “gay or transgender lifestyles” will be required to leave. The Network for Public Education’s 2022 report, Public Schooling in America: Measuring Each State’s Commitment to Democratically Governed Schools, provides an in-depth look at voucher programs, their impact, and their irresponsible and discriminatory practices.

“Advancing God’s Kingdom” through taxpayer funding of religious schools is not limited to voucher programs. Former parochial schools are turning themselves into charter schools, which are taxpayer-funded schools governed by private boards. One example is the Brilla charter chain run by Seton Education Partners, a nonprofit named after a Catholic saint. While the chain also runs private Catholic schools, their public charters offer optional onsite religious education when the school day closes.

The Hebrew language charter schools use a similar tactic. Secular instruction during the official school day (which includes mandatory classes in Hebrew), often in religious buildings, is followed by religious instruction at the day's end.

The Community Public Charter in North Carolina is located on the grounds of its landlord, the Community Pentecostal Center. The school was started by the Reverend Eddie Mc Ginnis, who serves as the Senior Pastor of the Church. Until recently, the website of the Pentecostal Center listed the charter school as one of its ministries, even providing a link for students to enroll.

Scholar and attorney Kevin Welner of the University of Colorado warns that the Carson v. Makin ruling opened the door to religious organizations directly running charter schools as well as the possibility of religious charter schools. And ESA voucher programs which combine few regulations with large sums of money that can pay nearly the full cost of tuition, are now the most favored programs of the acolytes of Friedman.

As school choice grows under the eye of a Court with nothing but disdain for church and state separation, troubling days indeed are ahead. One can imagine small communities where public schools shutter as funding is drained by “choice” alternatives. In such places, the only “choice” left could be a religious school—and for many families, that would leave no choice at all.