The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution held a September 17 oversight hearing on a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Zelman vs. Simmons-Harris, upholding school vouchers and Congress’ ability to enact school choice legislation.
On June 27, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in a 5-4 decision, that a Cleveland, Ohio, school voucher program did not violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. The program provides low-income parents with publicly funded vouchers of $2,250 to help them send their children to a school of their choice, including private and parochial schools. Since the vouchers are issued to the parents and not directly to the schools, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the choice resides with the parent and not the government.
Opening the hearing, Subcommittee Chair Steve Chabot (R-OH) noted, “The purpose of this hearing is to examine how the Supreme Court Decision clarified Congress’ authority to enact choice programs….” He added, “If children are not learning, and schools do not improve, parents should have options, including sending children to better public schools, charter schools, and private or parochial schools.”
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) questioned the purpose of the hearing, pointing out that the subcommittee plays no “institutional role” in drafting school choice legislation. “We have no jurisdiction to overturn a Supreme Court decision,” he said. Another House committee has “jurisdiction over school choice legislation,” he added.
The panel of witnesses included representatives from the legal, religious, and education communities who presented a variety of views on the Zelman decision and school choice programs. Richard Komer of the Institute for Justice testified that he represented the “parents whose children received scholarships through the Cleveland program upheld by the Supreme Court.”
According to Mr. Komer, most Americans have exercised school choice options. “We just aren’t accustomed to thinking of it as school choice when a family chooses to buy a home in a particular school district because of the reputation of its schools, or when a family decides to pay to send its children to a private school,” he explained. School districts where parents can afford “to exercise these forms of school choice are quite aware that despite their local monopoly, their clientele does have other options they can pursue if they become dissatisfied enough,” he added.
On the other hand, public school districts where few families can afford to send their children to private or parochial schools know that they have a captive audience “whose dissatisfaction will not lead to a decline in usage of their services,” he continued.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision allows voucher-type programs, like the one in Cleveland, “to catalyze educational reform in inner city school districts, which is where our worst problems remain despite decades of failed reform efforts, by empowering families to exercise the same choice wealthier families routinely exercise,” he stressed.
The Reverend Timothy McDonald of People for the American Way was the lone dissenter on the panel. “This Congress should not pursue vouchers because vouchers do not provide true choice to parents,” he urged. Private schools are selective in their admissions and are not required to adhere to federal anti-discrimination laws, he continued. Consequently, “private schools would be able to maintain their current exemptions to certain anti-discrimination laws, and exclude students based on religion, gender, limited English proficiency and disability,” he argued.
Reverend McDonald also argued that voucher programs divert money from the public schools, which “hurts the very students who rely on the promise of public education” such as African-American students. “If the intent were truly to help low-income African-American students, then priority would be given to funding those public schools educating the majority of African-American students,” he stressed.
Additionally, Reverend McDonald pointed out that the Cleveland voucher program “has cost the taxpayers over $43 million.” He charged that “the vast majority of these funds was taken from disadvantaged pupil impact aid that otherwise would have gone to the most disadvantaged children in the Cleveland public schools.”
Cleaster Whitehurst-Mims of the Marva Collins Preparatory School in Cincinnati, Ohio, disagreed. She told the subcommittee, “We are here to find a way that the government can provide public funds to the parents who wish to send their children to Marva Collins Prep School, a nonpublic, nonsectarian school.”
She continued, “Those who oppose vouchers as an educational choice based on the claim that vouchers will skim off the best and the brightest from the public schools, need to hear our story.” She said that she and a group of parents who were frustrated with the low achievement of their children in public schools founded the Marva Collins School in 1990. “We opened the school with two teachers, a secretary, a volunteer administrator and 43 students whose academic achievements reflect all points on the ‘Bell Curve,’” she said. “They were not the brightest, but became the best and the brightest,” she highlighted.
“Do you require parent involvement?” asked Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). “How about uniforms? Do you require uniforms?” he asked.
“Yes, parent involvement is very much required and encouraged,” responded Ms. Mims. “For parents who have difficulty attending meetings in the evenings because they work, I hold meetings on Saturday,” she explained. “We also require uniforms,” she added.
“With so many requirements, the school may be leaving out many students and being selective with public funds,” responded Rep. Conyers.
“We don’t want government funds,” said Ms. Mims. “We want parents to be given money to make educational choices for their children, like food stamps that do not stipulate where recipients should shop,” she added.
