AFT: Publications: American Teacher: April 2002 Special Report: Cleveland supports its public schools

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American Teacher
April 2002--Special Report

Cleveland supports its public schools
Parents and others say vouchers distract from what's really needed

A standing-room-only crowd of more than 1,000 supporters of public education turned out at St. John AME Church in Cleveland, Ohio, in February for a lively rally against vouchers and in support of the city's schools. With a theme of "Every Child Counts," the rally was attended by parents, elected officials, ministers, union leaders, teachers and students. A rally highlight was the appearance by television and film actress Vivica A. Fox, who spoke about the value of public education and the harm of vouchers. A product of the Indianapolis public schools, Fox is active in a number of projects to promote reading and teachers. To parents, Fox said, "How about getting more involved in public schools to make sure they are as powerful as private schools?"

Ohio Federation of Teachers president and AFT vice president Tom Mooney also spoke at the rally, which was organized in part by the Cleveland Teachers Union. Mooney noted that the Cleveland plan violates the U.S. Constitution because it amounts to state support of religion--more than 99 percent of the district's voucher students attend religious schools. "The program will divert $15 million this year from the Cleveland Municipal Schools, which would be better used to improve the education offered to the 77,000 students in the public schools," he said.

The tax dollars used to send kids to private and parochial schools should be used for "hiring more teachers to reduce class sizes and [for] repairing and modernizing our school buildings," Cleveland parent Lenore Brown asserted.

Addressing the rally, NAACP education director John Jackson said vouchers have nothing to do with improving public schools. "How can a plan that services only 10 percent of the Cleveland schoolchildren be a plan for all?" He urged parents, educators, elected leaders and the Cleveland community to "organize and develop a plan to improve our education system for all children."

High Court hears voucher challenge

A long-standing debate over private school vouchers came to a head on Feb. 20 as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a widely watched constitutional challenge to the school voucher program in Cleveland, Ohio. At issue in the consolidated cases now before the court is whether Cleveland's six-year-old voucher program undercuts the First Amendment's protection against government-promoted religion.

More than 99 percent of students participating in the Cleveland voucher program attend religious schools, which constitute more than four out of five schools currently participating in the program. The AFT argues that First Amendment protections are undermined by the fact that participation in religious observances is compulsory or routinely expected without regard to the religion of any particular student in many voucher schools.

Taxpayer money collected by these schools is unrestricted, and "a dominating use" for these funds at many voucher schools "is the teaching and propagation of their respective religious beliefs," stresses an AFT brief that was filed in the case.

The state-funded Cleveland "scholarship" program provides vouchers of up to $2,250 each to more than 4,400 students in the city. The Cleveland program was found unconstitutional by a federal trial and U.S. appeals court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit drew heavily from the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Nyquist ruling, in which justices found unconstitutional a New York tuition reimbursement program because it had the effect of supporting religious education.

Voucher supporters have tried to blunt First Amendment challenges by arguing that choice rests with the parents of students participating in the Cleveland voucher program. In fact, voucher payments are distributed through an "automatic endorsement" process in Cleveland. Checks payable to parents are sent directly to schools; parents must show up at the buildings and endorse them back to the schools on the spot. This is nothing more than "a clumsy and ineffective device to avoid the conclusion that it was providing for payments directly to sectarian schools," the AFT brief says.

Attorneys for both the AFT and the National Education Association presented the case against vouchers at oral arguments, which lasted a longer-than-usual 80 minutes. Arguing in defense of vouchers were attorneys for the state of Ohio and U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who last year asked the Supreme Court to review the two lower court rulings at the request of the Bush administration.

During arguments, the justices focused on the distinction between funds going to public and private schools and the different requirements placed on each under the law. "We went in there with a posture that was favorable, having won at both the lower court and appeal level and having persuasive facts, while at the same time recognizing that this issue has closely divided this court along ideological lines," said AFT counsel David Strom.

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