Voucher Opposition On The Right

In some states, like Idaho and Texas, we're seeing some conservatives remember that being conservative doesn't really go along with handing over taxpayer dollars with no oversight or accountability, and so it makes sense that folks on the right would oppose school vouchers, particularly in the currently popular form in which the government throws tax dollars at families to spend with no questions asked.

But it turns out that there are pother folks on the right who don't like the school voucher idea.

New American is a seriously right-tilted publication. It features articles like one explaining why Jesus was no socialist and another celebrating the return of the John Birch Society (with whom they're affiliated) to CPAC. They've got a whole opinion piece about how government school is terrible because it quashes young genius, thereby supporting the old theory that if you keep going rightward, you eventually reappear on the far left.

But in this piece by Alex Newman (whose far-right credentials are impeccable), we get the argument that vouchers are a trap, a Trojan Horse, cheese in the mousetrap. Here's the opening:

The money should follow the child, they said in the early 1990s. That way, they said, parents will have “school choice.” Fund students, not systems, went the common refrain. This will introduce more “competition” in the quasi-monopoly education sector, they said. And it will give parents the ability to choose the education that best aligns with their priorities.

It all sounded so great that parties from across the political spectrum agreed to give it a try. Even conservative-leaning American think tanks such as Heritage were impressed, trumpeting the policy as a model. But then, in an instant, all genuine choice was abolished with one “education reform” law fewer than two decades after “school choice” was approved.

Suddenly, private schools taking public money were ordered to teach the radical government curriculum, including the gender-bending extremism. All had to participate in national testing, too, ensuring that all schools taught what the government wanted taught. With public money there must be “accountability,” they said.

Perhaps even more troubling, supposedly Christian private schools were ordered to stop all Bible reading and prayer during school hours. In the same legislation, homeschooling was banned. Homeschoolers were forced to flee the nation, with armed police grabbing some children, such as Domenic Johansson, as families desperately tried to escape “school choice” to freer nations.

In short, all genuine and meaningful “choice” was abolished in one fell swoop — all under the seductive guise of “choice.” Somewhat ironically, perhaps, the alleged effort to offer alternatives to government schools ended up turning all schools into government schools.

Now--twist--that's supposed to be what happened in Sweden, but Newman offers it as a warning. And by the way--the whole vouchers-as-a-trap strategy was laid out by UNESCO!

And the Public-Private Partnership model? That's something widely supported by "global elites." In fact, did you know that the Nazis did something similar, using money to rope in private schools.

In other words, “private” schools will become government schools once they take government money — regardless of “their ownership.”

Even some popular figures on the right can't be trusted.

The dangers of the approach advocated by DeVos and DeAngelis become obvious merely by examining the programs. This year, powerful lobbyists and Florida Republicans introduced House Bill 1 to open up the floodgates of government funding to homeschoolers and private schools. The original draft of the bill would have made tax-funded “Family Empowerment Scholarships” available to basically all students in Florida, including homeschoolers and those attending private schools.

But, as always, there was a big catch: In exchange for government money, the students receiving it would be required to take government-mandated tests aligned with Common Core, with results reported to authorities. The families would also be required to meet each year with a “choice navigator” to determine the educational “needs” of their tax-funded child. The aid was to be distributed by a government-aligned “non-profit” organization that received grants from Florida’s leading LGBT extremist group even as it was seeking to impose its “woke” agenda on Christian schools.

Do you get it! Common Core!!!

You can't trust any of these people. "Trojan Horse-type situation" says Lieutenant Colonel E. Ray Moore (Ret.), founder of the Exodus Mandate ministry to get Christian families to abandon government schools. "When we reach for the money, the handcuffs go on."

CEO Robert Bortins with Classical Conversations, a prominent organization providing classical Christian education to homeschoolers nationwide, highlighted this argument. “I think it is very basic. Who pays for it? If it’s the government and outside of God’s design it will not yield good outcomes.”

Newman doesn't acknowledge the very specific language that voucher fans have included in their bills to cut all strings tying the money to the government. He does like the idea of tax credit scholarships, if you're paying for your own child's education. Because over on the far right, children are an awful lot like chattel.

Rather than looking to government for help and other people’s money, Americans must return to the biblical principle that children are the God-given responsibility of parents — not Caesar or even one’s neighbors. This is true not just in terms of feeding and clothing, but in education, too. No one should feel entitled to seize money from his neighbor for the “education” of his children. Taking wealth from one’s neighbor by force is wrong, even if it is being spent on an otherwise noble goal.

There's a lot of blather in this piece, but it's a good reminder that neither the pro- nor anti- voucher camps are unified in their visions, values, or concerns.