Term Paper on "How the Results of Zelman vs. Simmons Harris Changed the Debate on School Choice"

Term Paper 14 pages (3777 words) Sources: 15 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

school choice debate. The writer uses the well-known Zelman vs. Simmons-Harris case to discuss the ways that case changed the public school choice debate.

For many years, public schools have abided by the separation of church and state that has been held as a measurement of truth in government since the public school system began. Generational changes have taken place with each passing lifetime that have continued to move schools away from any hint of religious belief or preference.

Whereas years ago students were taught to read and write using bible verses, and their school singing lessons came in the form of church hymns, those elements of public school were systematically removed until the nation was left with the system it has today, which for all intents and purposes there is no link between religion and public education.

Currently there are more than 50 million students in America's public school system (Owens, 2002). Until recently there didn't seem to be any question where the government stood on the church and school issue. Public schools across the country have recently been ordered to remove any indication of religion, including allowing students to say the Lord's Prayer any other prayer during graduation ceremonies. Schools that have the Ten Commandments on their walls were ordered to remove them and news channels nationwide carried coverage any time a school refused to comply.

Up until several years ago, it appeared that the separation of church and state was complete within America's public school system.

Then came the issue of school choice. At first glance, the debate raging around school choice didn't seem to be in any way linked to religious schools.

Long ago, parents who wanted their children educated through the umbrella of a religious faith began placing their children in private schools that were affiliated with certain denominations (Owens, 2002).

For several decades, it appeared to be a working system. If one wanted their child educated in a non-religious setting one could choose either public school or a secular private school. If one wanted their child to be educated in a religious setting one could choose a private school of their desired faith.

It was not long however before parents of public school students began to demand changes in the public school system, not with regard to allowing religion into the mix, but with regard to curriculum and education being provided. The public school system began to fend off attacks that included accusations of funding the most taxpayer dollars to the wealthy areas and letting the schools in the poverty stricken areas fend for themselves (Owens, 2002).

The public outcry began to grow and it was not long before the entire nation was facing a crisis about what to do to please parents, educators and students with regard to public school performance (Owens, 2002).

This led to a recent explosion in the way of public education alternatives as charter schools, magnet schools and home schools began to appear in every state.

In addition, several states began to implement a school voucher program. The school voucher program allowed parents who were not happy with the school their children were geographically zoned to attend; to choose to have them attend a different public school and it was provided for (Owens, 2002). In addition if the parents decided they would rather their children attend private school the public system in areas that had vouchers would provide funding for partial payment to those private schools to educate the students (Owens, 2002).

Almost 90% of America's fifty-three million school-aged children attend primary or secondary schools funded by the government (Owens, 2002). And although only a quarter of American voters currently have school-aged children, everyone is connected in some way to the public school system: taxpayers finance it, employers hire its graduates, and more importantly, its effectiveness is widely understood to be a key measure of social and economic justice (Owens, 2002). Whatever else might be said about the American system of public education, all citizens seem to agree that such a fundamental change in its structure is likely to impact society well beyond the schoolyard in important and largely unforeseen ways (Owens, 2002)."

It was not long before the topic of school choice became extremely heated. With so much at stake it is not hard to understand the importance of the debate. Those who were in favor of allowing school choice believed that it would encourage teachers to put their best efforts forward to maintain quality educational standards that would convince parents to leave their children in the public school system (Owens, 2002).

They also believed that with some free market competition schools would have to make the improvements that parents had been demanding for years, because parents could "vote with their feet" by simply removing their children and enrolling them elsewhere (Owens, 2002).

The schools that had the worse reputations would surely face mass exodus and according to proponents of school choice, they would only be able to stop it by making significant changes to the education they were providing.

Another area of improvement alleges the school choice advocates is test scores (Owens, 2002). They believe it will foster higher test scores as well as reduce any racism issues by integrating fully for the first time since the school system began.

Opponents, however, argue against a market-based system on the grounds that it does not adequately value education, and that the market economy has consistently failed to serve the interests of lower-income Americans (Owens, 2002). Furthermore, they fear that school choice initiatives will decrease public accountability and oversight, aggravate segregation problems by allowing or even encouraging balkanized schools with focused ethnic, religious or ideological curricula to compete against traditional common schools (Owens, 2002), undermine other public school reform efforts by shifting scarce resources away from public schools, and concentrate underperforming and problem students in inferior schools (Owens, 2002)."

It is interesting to note, that school choices are currently a hotly debated subject and today's controversy surrounds many issues with the school choice option, however, true changes with regard to school choice actually began taking place in the 1970's. It was at that time that magnet schools began to appear nationwide. Magnet schools were developed to attract students with a particular interest or leaning to attend and get an immersion in that area. There were magnet schools for those interested in math, science, literature, art and drama to name a few.

Today there are more than 4,000 magnet schools across the nation. More recently another move was made toward the support of school choice by way of charter schools. Charter schools began in 1992 in St. Paul Minnesota (Owens, 2002). Currently there are more than 1,600 of them nationwide. A charter school is a school that is started by parents, and for the most part it is run by parents, though it is a public school.

Parents decide what curriculum the school will use, when the school day will start and end and other important decisions with regard to the school itself.

For the most part the government has supported the idea of school choice. Presidents Bush and Clinton both funneled millions of dollars into the support of charter and magnet schools as well as a more recent school voucher program. School vouchers began with 300 inner city children and grew to more than 64,000 children who made the move from their home zoned public school to a private or parochial school of their choice partially funded by the public school system (Owens, 2002).

And it is clear that the demand for school vouchers far exceeds their supply: in 1999, for example, a private foundation offering 40,000 vouchers nationwide received 1.25 million applications (Owens, 2002). National media coverage of school choice debates in the federal, state, and local governments continues to fuel the demand, with no end in sight (Owens, 2002)."

If the overall school choice movement is gathering momentum, however, the expansion of school voucher programs has stalled in the past year (Owens, 2002). Statistics regarding the explosive growth of school choice (as those noted above) and the attendant media buzz over political battles often serve to obscure the critical distinction between public and private financing schemes for vouchers (Owens, 2002). Over 80% of the current school vouchers are financed by philanthropic individuals or foundations, and the few publicly-funded vouchers that exist are concentrated almost exclusively in two cities, Milwaukee and Cleveland (Owens, 2002)." school voucher program in Cleveland drew national attention recently as most of those participating placed their children into select religiously affiliated schools. The problem according to those in the system was that the concentration of students using the vouchers to go to parochial school created an uneven division for voucher support in the remaining district public and private schools.

And once again the first amendment issues were brought to the surface as Cleveland's voucher program came under fire.

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