Republican Candidates and School Choice? Support Parental Choice in Education

The renewal of civil society depends upon the proper education of the next generation.

Supporters of school choice call for a public policy and enabling legislation which makes it possible for all parents, no matter what their socio-economic situation, to choose where to send their children to school. This choice should be available from among a full array of options including public, private, parochial, virtual, charter and home schools. Thus, the policy is better understood as "parental choice" in education. It recognizes that parents are the first teachers and should make the choice where to expand their teaching mission for their own children.

P>WASHINGTON,DC (Catholic Online) - Those who support school choice call for a public policy and enabling legislation which makes it possible for all parents, no matter what their socio-economic situation, to choose where to send their children to school.

This choice should be available for parents from among a full array of options including public, private, parochial,virtual, charter and home schools. Thus, the policy is better understood as "parental choice" in education. It recognizes that parents are the first teachers and should be the ones who make the choice where to expand their teaching mission for their own children.

As a constitutional lawyer I know this can be accomplished in a constitutionally sound way by empowering parents to make this vital choice through properly drafted voucher legislation, tax credits, or opportunity scholarships. 

Those who oppose school choice too often resort to scare tactics. They argue that it will detrimentally affect the public school system. Sadly, they rely on ignorance to fan the flames of their opposition to a truly just educational policy.

They claim that supporters of school choice are against public schools. That is not true. For example, this supporter of school choice grew up in the inner city of Dorchester, Massachusetts in a "blue collar" home.

My parents struggled to give me the first four primary educational years in a parochial school. The remainder of my education was in a public school. They moved, at great sacrifice and hardship, to make sure it was a good public school.

Opponents act as though the currently overly federalized bloated bureaucracy called the Public School system is how education in the United States has always been. Nothing could be further from true history. Public schools were first local, community schools.

School choice will return the leadership of our National educational endeavor to parents and the local community. It will also improve the public school system by ensuring that parents can choose the schools they want for their children. Competition in the delivery of goods and services has amazing results.

School Choice is not a threat to good governance. Rather, it recognizes that all government begins in the home and then applies the social ordering principle of subsidiarity. The term is derived from the Latin word "subsidium" which means help or assistance.

The principle of subisdiarity is a social ordering principle which says that governance should begin at the smallest level first. The first government is the family. All other government should provide assistance or help to that first government - and not usurp its primary role. Thus, it is a principle which favors a bottom up approach to governing and affirms the family as the first government and first school.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms the right of parents to choose a school for their children, "As those first responsible for the education of their children, parents have the right to choose a school for them which corresponds to their own convictions. This right is fundamental.

"As far as possible parents have the duty of choosing schools that will best help them in their task as Christian educators. Public authorities have the duty of guaranteeing this parental right and of ensuring the concrete conditions for its exercise." (CCC#2229)

The teaching of the Catholic Church on the primacy of parents in the educational mission is refreshingly forthright and helpful. It provides insights for real educational reform which promotes the common good and does not just mouth the phrase and continue the failed policies of the past in our current public educational system.

The primacy of marriage - and the family founded upon it - is the first cell of society, the first church, first government, first school, first hospital, first economy, and the first mediating institution of  society. It should also be the polestar as we seek to build a truly just educational and public policy in the United States.

A just and efficient philosophy of government must be grounded in the recognition that the family is the first government. Further, that all other government must first be at its service. In "The Role of the Christian family in the Modern World" Blessed John Paul II called for the development of a "family politics". It is time to build such a "family politics" and that is a part of the New Catholic Action. 

The primary foundation for school choice is the recognition of the family as the first school and first vital cell of human society. Parents are the first teachers of their children. All education begins in the home. It is the right of parents to choose where their children go to school.

That choice for the parents of all children should include the full array of options, public, private, parochial, charter and home schools, no matter what their economic status. It is better for the children, better for society and more economically efficient.

Education outside of the home is an extension of the parent's primary educational mission. The family is the first school and the first government. We have forgotten that objective truth as a Nation and we are reaping the consequences. We need real educational reform in this Nation, not the rearranging of chairs on the Titanic.

In an Apostolic Exhortation of Blessed John Paul II entitled "The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World" he wrote, "The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others..."

In his "Letter to Families", he wrote: "Parents are the first and most important educators of their own children, and they also possess a fundamental competence in this area; they are educators because they are parents. They share their educational mission with other individuals or institutions, such as the Church and the State.

"But the mission of education must always be carried out in accordance with a proper application of the Principle of Subsidiarity. This implies the legitimacy and indeed the need of giving assistance to the parents, but finds its intrinsic and absolute limit in their prevailing right and actual capabilities. The principle of subsidiarity is thus at the service of parental love, meeting the good of the family unit."

"For parents by themselves are not capable of satisfying every requirement of the whole process of raising children; especially in matters concerning their schooling and the entire gamut of socialization. Subsidiarity thus complements paternal and maternal love and confirms its fundamental nature, inasmuch as all other participants in the process of education are only able to carry out their responsibilities in the name of the parents, with their consent and, to a certain degree, with their authorization."

School Choice is a matter of real social justice - not what is masquerading as social justice in some circles these days. The opposition by some in the leadership of the teachers unions to this just approach to educational reform shows how far some of these mediating associations have strayed from their proper social role.

School choice is right for our children, right for our parents and right for our Nation. Will school choice in the United States improve the current state of our Catholic School system in the United States? Yes, it will. It will open up our schools as one of the many options for parents to choose from for their own children. We should welcome that both as Catholics and as good citizens.

In an age characterized by what Pope Benedict XVI called a "Dictatorship of Relativism", Catholic Schools offer a true education; one which recognizes that there are truths and values which can be known by all men and women which should inform our life together in society. 

Catholic Schools provide excellence in the fullest sense by cultivating within students a desire for virtue, a love for truth, and a commitment to service and participation. The objective statistics are clear on every front, Catholic schools work! They should be made available to any parent who would choose them for their children.

The teaching of the Catholic Church on the primacy of parents in the educational mission, as well as their right to choose where to send their children to school, promotes the common good of society.  In 1997, the Congregation for Catholic Education summarized the Catholic educational mission in "The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium".

It begins with this astute observation: "On the threshold of the third millennium education faces new challenges which are the result of a new socio-political and cultural context. First and foremost, we have a crisis of values which, in highly developed societies in particular, assumes the form, often exalted by the media, of subjectivism, moral relativism and nihilism." In this cultural context, the mission of the Catholic School becomes all the more urgent."

It calls for a "correct relationship between state and school" contending that choosing a school, "not only a Catholic school, is based not so much on institutional relations as on the right of each person to receive a suitable education of their free choice. This right is acknowledged according to the principle of subsidiarity."

For "The public authority, therefore, whose duty it is to protect and defend the liberty of the citizens, is bound according to the principle of distributive justice to ensure that public subsidies are so allocated that parents are truly free to select schools for their children in accordance with their conscience".

It continues, "In the framework not only of the formal proclamation, but also in the effective exercise of this fundamental human right, in some countries there exists the crucial problem of the juridical and financial recognition of non-state schools."

We share John Paul II's earnest hope, expressed yet again recently in the clear encouragement of the magisterium on Pope Benedict XVI, that in all democratic countries "concrete steps finally be taken to implement true equality for non-state schools and that it be at the same time respectful of their educational project".

We call upon the readers of Catholic Online in the United States - and throughout the world - to build and participate in a New Catholic Action. Part of our educational and social agenda should include our advocacy for parental choice in education or "school choice".

We need to know where each of the Republican candidates for President stand on school choice.  Sadly, we already know that the our current President opposes it. We invite the moderators of every debate going forward to ask the Republican candidates about their position on school choice. We invite the candidates to let us know - and we will publish their positions.

Finally, as Catholics who are citizens of the Nation, we should be unapologetic in our defense of the essential contribution of Catholic Schools to the Nation and the common good. The renewal of civil society depends upon the proper education of the next generation. Catholic schools are an asset for every Nation and should be included among the full array of choices available to parents in their choice for the education of their children.

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