Voucher Systems Will Not Survive

Take the By-Pass

C.S. Lewis once pointed out that state monopoly education systems, such as we have in New Zealand, will always devolve to mediocrity.  This is certainly true in the West because all such government monopolies are grounded upon an ideology of human rights, on the one hand, and an ideology of education as the guarantor of the future, on the other.  Which is to say there is a false religious foundation to public education systems.

Human rights doctrines pervert education into an issue of justice.  If we are not being educated, we are suffering an injustice.  Our human rights are being threatened and even violated.  The secular humanist state cannot fail to educate without being indicted with committing acts of injustice.  Secondly, human rights doctrines necessarily imply a consistent drive toward egalitarianism in education.  A system that produces superiors and inferiors in educational levels and achievements grates.  Have not the inferiors been treated unjustly?  Have not the superiors been given special advantages and favours?  The overriding drive in developing New Zealand's NCEA qualification system has been to remove failure and inferiority from educational "outputs".  An ideology of everyone gaining qualifications and every pupil departing school having succeeded at something was, and is, intrinsic to the edifice.  

Therefore, because human rights doctrines suborn education into a matter of justice and equality, statist education systems consistently dumb down education to consensus mediocrity.  If everyone has to get an education, and everyone has to succeed, pablum is inevitable. 

But there is another reason state education systems gravitate to the mean, and the trend of the mean is to mediocrity.  The secular anti-Christian west elevates education into heights it cannot sustain.  Mankind is an evolving and developing species in the vortex of evolution.  He has developed to the point where, unlike all other species, he can now control his own evolution by virtue of his reasoning power and the application of the newly discovered scientific method.  The survival of the race in general and our society in particular rests therefore with educating people so that mankind can continue to take charge of his own evolution and get better and better.  

Name any social problem you like.  Ask any public figure or member of the commentariate how we are going to solve this problem.  Within five minutes education-as-solution will be put forward.  We call this the fallacy of reductio ad educatum.  Do we have a problem with obesity?  Government schools are the key to overcoming this threat, not only by providing superior nutrition, but to teaching the next generation how to eat better.  National savings--or the lack thereof--has been in the news lately.  Repeatedly members of the commentariate have called for schools to be at the forefront of raising the savings levels of the next generation.  We could go on.

A system that is made responsible for everything, ends up doing nothing well.  Because secular ideologies end up looking to their education systems for so much,  the systems cannot bear the weight in the end and collapse into mumbling mediocrity.  (Of course, part of the dead weight is the never ceasing spawn of regulation, reporting, assessing, and compliance of burgeoning bureaucratic controls.  But that too is inevitable in state education systems.  Since education secures our future and continuance as a race, would you risk leaving it to a few uncontrolled, random teachers?  Would you entrust national defence to such random outcomes?  No?  How much less education which secures our continuity as a species.) 

One solution put forward to the ossification of state education systems has been the voucher.  A state voucher is given to parents to pay for education at schools of their choosing for their children.  Whilst more enlightened and less indoctrinated politicians may push for voucher policies from time to time, vouchers will never be continued in the long run.  They are hated by teacher unions, bureaucrats and state education ideologues.  Why?  Because the voucher system is an implicit endorsement of winners and losers, superiors and inferiors, better schools and worse schools, and of professional and sub-standard teachers. Consequently, voucher policies are square pegs in the round holes of state education systems.  They strike at the vitals of the beast.  

Nevertheless, when they have been tried and applied, voucher policies have made a significant difference.  One case in point: the failing Washington DC school system.  For a number of years they experimented with a voucher system; Democrats are trying hard to get it shut down.  It looks as if it will receive new life under the Republican controlled Congress--till the next time.  One mother's story was carried by the Washington Post: 

I’m so glad I didn’t give up, because slowly but surely Jerlisa’s grades and education advanced. That made everything worthwhile. As ninth grade ended, I just couldn’t believe how much she had learned and grown. I said to myself: “By George, I think she’s got it now!”

Jerlisa isn’t the only one who has benefited from this experience. I, too, started to feel more confident. Now I ask about resources and fill out scholarship applications with ease. I found a way to buy new uniforms for my daughter. Instead of washing uniforms every afternoon, I use the time to help my daughter with her homework.

And seeing Jerlisa’s growth over the past six years has inspired me to take some hard steps in my own life. I’m now applying to programs to become a home health-care nurse. Meanwhile, Jerlisa is deciding where to apply for college.

These are things we never dreamed were possible before. I am extremely proud of my daughter, and she is proud of me. Jerlisa’s scholarship has been worth so much more than $7,500.

Obviously one swallow does not a summer make.  Nevertheless this story is not untypical.  Aaron Worthing at Patterico blogs on this piece: 

Cato @ Liberty points out that her experience is hardly unique:

The latest federal study of the D.C. voucher program finds that voucher students have pulled significantly ahead of their public school peers in reading and perform at least as well as public school students in math. It also reports that the average tuition at the voucher schools is $6,620. That is ONE QUARTER what the District of Columbia spends per pupil on education ($26,555), according to the District’s own fiscal year 2009 budget.

But in a comprehensive government education system, such as we have in New Zealand, voucher systems will never be tolerated for long, if at all.  They are implicitly seditious, undermining an entire edifice and the ideology upon which it is built.  The solution?  Longer term it is to by-pass state schools.  Use them only when absolute necessity requires--and then with great caution and much scrutiny.  Set up home schools and independent schools that are free of the shackles that constantly pull towards mediocrity.  

God is not served by the lies upon which secular state education systems are based.