False Assumptions on Voucher Programs and the Law

By William Bentley Bail

Frank R. Kemerer's Commentary, "The Publicization of the Private School" (Jan. 8, 1992), will prove an effective weapon in the hands of the public school lobby. It will please all others who fear competition in education, who don't like the idea of parental choice in schools, or who harbor antagonism toward religious schools. The article is built on a number of false assumptions.

First is the underlying assumption that the state is not merely a superior educator but that it is the sole educator. That is, private education exists by sufferance of the all-wise mind of the state educational bureaucracy and, in all essentials, private schools should be carbon copies of public schools. Mr. Kemerer singularly fails to point to the fact that the education prescribed and controlled by the bureaucracies is what has put the nation at risk. Even more important is his utterly mistaken view that, under the American Constitution, a governmental monopoly on the educating of children legitimately exists. This brings me to his second presumption, namely, that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in...