Follow
Register for free to receive Fr. Patrick Mary Briscoe’s My Daily Visitor newsletter and unlock full access to the latest inspirational stories, news commentary, and spiritual resources from Our Sunday Visitor.
Newsletter Magazine Subscription

The debate over school vouchers must start with basic principles

Sister Martha Mary Carpenter, principal at St. Peter Indian Mission Catholic School on the Gila River Indian Reservation in Bapchule, Ariz., works with a student during boys seventh and eight-grade math class Sept. 4, 2024. Catholic Schools Week is observed Jan. 26-Feb. 1, 2025. (OSV News photo/Bob Roller)

State legislatures are back in session. Lawmaking has resumed, and among the issues being discussed in several states is financially assisting parents who decide not to send their children to public schools by providing them with “vouchers” to go to other schools.

Many versions of the plan exist. Details vary state to state. The bottom line is that public funding, in some way, would go to families with children not enrolled in the schools provided by counties or states.

Since the Catholic school system, despite all the changes in the past 50 years, remains a major component of American education, and Catholic schools still serve millions of young Americans, and since the debate is brisk, moral principles must be considered.

These basic Catholic teachings are important to recall: First and foremost, the upbringing of children is primarily the responsibility, and the right, of parents. This responsibility requires parents to prepare their children for happy lives as adults, meaning not only giving them a knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic, but an understanding of principles and values to guide them. For Catholics, the perfect and ultimate source of these principles and values is the revelation of Jesus, as treasured and taught by the Roman Catholic Church all these many centuries.

As American citizens, Catholic parents have every right to act on this belief in educating their own children. American law takes this as given, so it allows homeschooling and nonpublic schools.

Second, for the betterment of society and for the good of each child, the government, at whatever level, is obligated to assist parents in their responsibility, basically to prepare youth for productive lives as citizens.

Challenges to Catholic schools

The United States has a history, not always benign, of governmental attention to the Catholic Church, and particularly to Catholic schools.

An important political leader 150 years ago, when Catholic schools were beginning to multiply, was Speaker of the House James G. Blaine, a Republican from Maine. His mother was a Catholic, of Irish descent, and his cousin was a nun, but he was never a Catholic himself. In Congress, he proposed amending the Constitution to ban any public funding for schools with a religious affiliation. His proposal failed, but it was seen as directly anti-Catholic, since no other denomination was establishing an entire system of schools.

More than a few Americans supported the “Blaine Amendment,” as it was called, arguing that Catholic schools were nests in which Catholic children were indoctrinated with ideas, prompting them to ignore American ideals and to be loyal only to the Roman pope.

The more enlightened said Catholic schools were unnecessary. Public schools were available to all.

In the 1920s, efforts were made to outlaw nonpublic schools. Catholic schools were the obvious targets. Oregon adopted such a measure, but the U.S. Supreme Court overruled it in 1925.

The role of government

Generally, those attitudes are gone, but the opinion endures that somehow public schooling must be the norm; after all, public schools are everywhere, free of charge. This opinion affects the current discussion about vouchers, as does the argument that the government has the chief duty of educating youth.

Not so: Parents have the ultimate obligation to discharge as they prefer. Government is obliged to assist parents. Genuine issues occur, such as the availability and application of public funds, and the impact upon public schools’ finances, but baseless assumptions and confusion muddy discussions.

Insight into the debate might come from looking across the northern border. Canada, a robust democracy and a prosperous society with its own large, efficient network of public schools, long has seen its government’s duty as assisting all Canadian parents in training their own children for life, and the concept works.

The recent past has not been kind to American Catholic schools. Many have closed, and most young Catholics go elsewhere. But none should be forced to do so by indifference to the proper place of government.