Jeanne Allen and Elizabeth Coleman on school vouchers

Jeanne Allen is founder and president of the Center for Education Reform. The CER is a national advocacy organization that hopes to bring fundamental changes to public schools.

Elizabeth Coleman is the Director of Civil Rights for the Anti-Defamation League. She is in charge of civil rights and legal affairs agenda for the ADL. She also oversees its research and fact-finding efforts.

CNN_Host: Welcome to the CNN Chatroom, Jeanne Allen and Elizabeth Coleman.

Jeanne_Allen: I'm happy to be here! This is a very important issue for people to focus on.

Elizabeth_Coleman: Good evening! I'm delighted to be here. I agree that this is an extremely important issue on many levels.

Question from skere: Why is the Anti-Defamation League interested in school vouchers?

Elizabeth_Coleman: The Anti-Defamation League is interested in vouchers for two reasons. One, because we believe that separation of church and state are deeply threatened by school vouchers, and no one should be taxed for the religious indoctrination of others, and that is what vouchers do, since over 80% are used for parochial schools. Secondly, because as a Jewish organization, we see America as a haven for religious minorities, and public schools have been key to bringing together our increasingly diverse population.

Jeanne_Allen: There are two issues that Elizabeth raises that are important from a pro-voucher standpoint. One is that religious tolerance is absolutely critical to our democracy, but people don't learn religious tolerance without having a really solid, well-grounded education, and a well-rounded education is currently being denied to vast numbers of children in this country. Vouchers are one way to help those children receive an education by choice that they deserve.

Question from Grizzly: What would you consider a viable alternative to the voucher system? Personally, I think that the solution is (relatively) simple - increased funding for public schools, and tougher curricula.

Elizabeth_Coleman: I think that you make a very important point. First of all, we need to evaluate public schools in a rational, non-anecdotal way, and look at the successful programs in public schools, such as were showcased on the show tonight in Milwaukee, and in efforts all over the country. We need to talk about smaller schools, smaller classes, consider charter schools, look at violence issues, teacher pay, teacher [certification], professional development, more equitable financing, parental involvement, etc. There are many programs happening and much more that can be done in a context that can truly create well-rounded education for the entire public school population, and not just for the few who escape, taking needed money from the public schools.

Jeanne_Allen: There is so much to say about this issue, and so many important points to make. One in particular is that all of the things that you've just read in terms of other options or other things we should be doing that my colleague suggests rather than vouchers, have in fact been on the table for almost 20 years, in every school system in this country. They've all had marginal impact on the health of the public schools. The reason that vouchers are even an issue today is because if it was as simple as all that, to make smaller schools and more responsive schools within the current system, we wouldn't need to have this discussion. But there are impediments to change, there are large vested interest groups who gain from the status quo, and all through it, children suffer. So, we need to try all of it, including vouchers.

Question from nogggin: Will a voucher system allow parents to send their kids to schools which will be free to turn away students or will the schools have various strings attached?

Jeanne_Allen: There are several different kinds of common voucher or scholarship programs. Some, like that in Milwaukee, require participating private and parochial schools to take students without any admissions criteria. Others, like that in Florida, don't require private schools to take everyone, and yet everyone who sought a voucher in Florida did in fact find a place. So, private schools under most programs do retain their autonomy. It is very important to note, however, that the Department of Education reports that private schools tend to be more integrated today than a lot of public schools in similar neighborhoods. So, I don't think there needs to be a concern that children won't find a place, and will be turned away. These schools make it their mission to help children, and very much want to participate on a level playing field.

Elizabeth_Coleman: I think that Ms. Allen gets to the heart of one of the major problems with vouchers, which came up on the CNN show tonight, which is the question of accountability. While public schools have appropriate regulations and mandated accountability, when you're dealing with a system of private, essentially unregulated schools, you're dealing with a system that relies on well-meaning schools, and some are, and some aren't. In addition, one of the differences between public schools and private schools is that public schools have to take everyone. Many private schools do not accept people with learning disabilities, special language needs, low academic achievement or those who do not meet religious criteria. People are left behind. Ultimately, they suffer and I'd argue that the greater community suffers when money is taken away from the public school system, leaving those most in need behind.

Question from Sparky: There is nothing implicit in a voucher program that improves education at all. It simply allows parents to use public money for their own purposes. Why not have education reforms that clearly improve public education?

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Jeanne_Allen: Why not, indeed! The word "accountability" was just raised, and I think we should talk about accountability. First and foremost, our schools are about learning, about education. We think our public schools are more accountable than other institutions, and yet only 40% of ALL of our American 4th graders are proficient in reading. The statistics are nearly identical for proficiency in geography and writing, and they're slightly worse in math. I could go on about the abysmal state that some of our children will wake up to tomorrow on the way to school. That's not to say that public schools are bad institutions, but they've been permitted to remain open to children in too many places, regardless of how poorly they perform, and at the same time great public schools do not necessarily get rewarded because they do well. So, the school improvement that you've just asked about can only occur when there is pressure to improve that makes people in the school system respond differently than if they'd been left alone. There is an enormous impact on traditional public schools everywhere vouchers have been introduced and tried. That's a good thing, because some of those schools have improved a lot. So, vouchers not only help children, they help schools get better, both public and private.

Elizabeth_Coleman: I think that there is a contradiction inherent in arguing that vouchers help public education in any but a symbolic way. Vouchers funnel money away from the public schools at a time when that money is needed for those schools to make the kind of improvements that I believe both Ms. Allen and I would like to see. You can't provide a simple solution to a very complex problem. I don't disagree that a failing school needs to be addressed in a radical way, principals fired when appropriate, accountability addressed. But to pull money out will just make schools that are abysmal even worse.

Question from why: What good has separation done us so far?

Elizabeth_Coleman: I think that this has been one of the greatest experiments over the past 200 years that the world has ever seen. We have over 1500 religions in this country. We have never had a religious war. We don't have religious strife. And yet, we're probably the most religious country in the industrialized world. Religion and faith have flourished because of separation, because the state has not corrupted or co-opted religion, and religion has been kept separate from the state. In the school context, this has meant that people of minority religions have not felt like outsiders, but have felt like part of the fabric of our country.

Jeanne_Allen: As a student of political theory, I have great respect for the separation of church and state that our founding fathers created. But when it comes to issues like school vouchers, some tend to confuse the issue of separation of church and state. In Florida, for example, when the voucher program was introduced, the state was already spending in excess of $41 million dollars in direct aid to religious institutions to care for the elderly, the homeless, and even preschool. On a federal level, if I was a poor woman, I could go to a Catholic hospital and have a baby with full federal subsidies. My child could go to a Jewish college with grants, and on and on. But a choice is made where we want our public dollars allocated, and every day those public dollars do in fact go to faith-based institutions, but they are not mandated at those institutions. That is a big difference, that emphasizes why there is no indoctrination involved with vouchers.

Question from rmc2000: Public schools have become vast day care centers and I wonder if private schools are going to take the special needs students? They will take tax dollars.

Jeanne_Allen: I'm not sure that our public schools have become vast day care centers. They certainly have been asked and demanded to do things that most parents don't necessarily all agree with. But part of the beauty of choice, both through things like charter schools (which are public schools of choice) or through vouchers, is that if you have a choice of school, what we've seen already with tens of thousands of children who make that choice right now publicly, is that families learn about their options more than they do when they're simply assigned to a school. They think more about what kinds of experiences their children need, and they shop for schools that will provide the services that their children need. There is a major fallacy you've just raised about special needs kids. They're sent every day by public schools to private schools at taxpayer expense. In California alone this year, over 100,000 special education children will be educated in a private school, because the public school said that's what they wanted to happen. So please don't believe for a moment that public schools are handling all special needs, and no one else is. That's simply a fallacy.

Elizabeth_Coleman: I think that the last person asking that question raised a very important point about choice, because choice, in my view, is a misnomer. Vouchers merely leave many with a worse choice, or no choice. The poorest and the special needs kids are left behind in schools that are even more bound to fail. In addition, as we saw tonight in the show, the facilities and equipment in public schools are often far superior to what is provided in private schools. The public schools had the computers. The public schools had the science curriculum. So called "choice" puts students in a situation where their choice diminishes, and they don't really know what they're getting.

CNN_Host: Thank you for joining us today, Jeanne Allen and Elizabeth Coleman.

Jeanne_Allen: I just want to encourage everybody who is interested in this not to be afraid to be controversial, because we should want to be controversial when it comes to educating our children. I'd also encourage you to stop by our website for more information, at www.edreform.com.

Elizabeth_Coleman: Thank you. Thank you very much for the provocative questions, and thank you to Ms. Allen for the provocative debate. After you visit Ms Allen's website, please join us at the Anti-Defamation League website, where we address many of these issues, at www.adl.org Thank you so much.

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