The Case for Parental Choice

John E. Coons

Description

This work makes a richly humanitarian case for parental school choice, seeking to advance social justice and respect the dignity of parents—especially those on the margins.

For decades, arguments in favor of school choice have largely been advanced on the basis of utility or outcome rather than social justice and human dignity. The Case for Parental Choice: God, Family, and Educational Liberty offers a compelling and humanitarian alternative. This volume contains an edited collection of essays by John E. Coons, a visionary legal scholar and ardent supporter of what is perhaps best described as a social justice case for parental school choice. Few have written more prodigiously or prophetically about the need to give parents—particularly poor parents—power over their children’s schooling. Coons has been an advocate of school choice for over sixty years, and indeed remains one of the most articulate proponents of a case for school choice that promotes both low-income parents and civic engagement, as opposed to mere efficiency or achievement. His is a distinctively Catholic voice that brings powerful normative arguments to debates that far too often get bogged down in disputes about cost savings and test scores.

The essays collected herein treat a wide variety of topics, including the relationship between school choice and individual autonomy; the implications of American educational policy for social justice, equality, and community; the impact of public schooling on low-income families; and the religious implications of school choice. Together, these pieces make for a wide-ranging and morally compelling case for parental choice in children’s schooling.

[Original Blog Post]

In The Case for Parental Choice: God, Family, and Educational Liberty, I focus attention upon the role of the parent in the selection, and relation to, the child’s school. Roughly half of America’s parents, since the mid-19th century, have been able to exercise a significant degree of choice among “public” schools by taking residence in the attendance zone of their favorite, or by going private. Obviously, as the family wealth per-child declines, so does the universe of neighborhoods that mothers and fathers can afford to inhabit or the tuition that they can afford to pay. In spite of the constitutional right of parents to choose, their access within both our systems is determined principally by money. America’s wealthy choose; the rest get chosen for by the impersonal command of government. Webster would have the word “public” mean “open to all”; this collection asks: Does our government school system even qualify as “public”?

These writings can be understood as a plea to today’s Democrats to face the mirror and ask: Is our policy of no-choice-for-the-poor designed to recognize and bolster the dignity and civic responsibility of the parental role? And, is that role experienced by the child of the choiceless family as something of unique importance? Or does little Alice see her parents’ impotence as a declaration by our society that these lower-income types are simply unqualified for that basic civic role so dear to parents who can afford to choose–We can trust them.

My late wife, Marylyn, and I were parents of five. The involvement in the process of selection increased with age, but we always retained the veto. Only recently did I realize that half our picks were “public” schools. I note this here lest the reader infer my hostility to our fifty state governments’ maintaining their own schools in a choice-based market system. It is my guess that most of the schools we call “public” will continue to flourish in a free market.

Again, this collection of my published views–basically unchanged over sixty-plus years–continue to be a warning to Democrats to cease protecting the status quo of our inner-city schools and their union squads by conscripting and sequestering the child of the poor. The party has ever flaunted its devotion to the needy. Let’s start meaning it.

Foreword by the Editors

Foreword by Jesse Choper

Preface by John E. Coons

Part 1. Religion, Liberty, and Education

1. Intellectual Liberty and the Schools

2. Making Schools Public

3. School Choice as Simple Justice

4. Education: Intimations of a Populist Rescue

5. Orphans of the Enlightenment: Belief and the Academy

Part 2. Education and Community

6. Can Education Create Community?

7. Education: Nature, Nurture, and Gnosis

8. Magna Charter

Part 3. Religion, Family, and Schools

9. Luck, Obedience, and the Vocation of the Childhood

10. The Religious Rights of Children

11. The Sovereign Parent

Conclusion: Exit, with Spirit

Appendix

Soldiers and School Choice

It Takes a Village? No, When It Comes to Schooling, It Takes Parents

Public Schools and the Bingo Curriculum

School Choice Restores Parental Responsibility

MLK and God’s Schools

Faith, School Choice, and Moral Foundations

Of Civics and “Sects”: Debunking Another School Choice Myth

Fear of Words Unspoken

Equality, “Created Equality,” and the Case for School Choice

A Tale of Two Turkeys

On Teaching Human Equality

School, Such a Trip

Bibliographical Essay

Sujets

• EDUCATION
• Philosophie et théologie
• Religión
• Philosophy
• Education policy
• Charter school
• State
• Civics
• General officer
• Public school
• Social capital
• School choice
• Politics
• Catholic
• Christianity
• Children
• Religion
• General
• Public school (Royaume-Uni)

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268204839
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE CASE FOR PARENTAL CHOICE
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS AND THE COMMON GOOD
Ernest Morrell and Nicole Garnett, series editors
Catholic Schools and the Common Good, a collaboration between Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives and the University of Notre Dame Press, is the first book series devoted to researching the largest private school system in the world. Volumes in this series provide both original research on Catholic schools specifically and comparative research on the effects of Catholic vs. other schooling sectors. The books in the series will focus on the the K–12 educational system, examining a wide variety of topics in order to understand trends and establish best practices in Catholic education in the United States and globally. Intended to provide practical advice and theoretical underpinnings, books in the series will provide useful information and ideas for Catholic educators and administrators.
THE CASE FOR
PARENTAL CHOICE
God, Family, and Educational Liberty
JOHN E. COONS
Edited by
Nicole Stelle Garnett, Richard W. Garnett, and Ernest Morrell
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
undpress.nd.edu
Copyright © 2023 by John E. Coons
Published in the United States of America
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022950295
ISBN: 978-0-268-20484-6 (Hardback)
ISBN: 978-0-268-20496-9 (WebPDF)
ISBN: 978-0-268-20483-9 (Epub)
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail]
CONTENTS Foreword by the Editors Foreword, by Jesse Choper Preface, by John E. Coons PART ONE R ELIGION , L IBERTY, AND E DUCATION ONE Intellectual Liberty and the Schools TWO Making Schools Public THREE School Choice as Simple Justice FOUR Education: Intimations of a Populist Rescue FIVE Orphans of the Enlightenment: Belief and the Academy PART TWO E DUCATION AND C OMMUNITY SIX Can Education Create Community? SEVEN Education: Nature, Nurture, and Gnosis EIGHT Magna Charter PART THREE R ELIGION, F AMILY, AND S CHOOLS NINE Luck, Obedience, and the Vocation of the Child TEN The Religious Rights of Children ELEVEN The Sovereign Parent Conclusion: Exit, with Spirit Appendix Soldiers and School Choice It Takes a Village? No, When It Comes to Schooling, It Takes Parents Public Schools and the Bingo Curriculum School Choice Restores Parental Responsibility MLK and God’s Schools Faith, School Choice, and Moral Foundations Of Civics and “Sects”: Debunking Another School Choice Myth Fear of Words Unspoken Equality, “Created Equality,” and the Case for School Choice A Tale of Two Turkeys On Teaching Human Equality School, Such a Trip Notes Bibliographical Essay: An Informal Bibliography of Parental Choice Index
FOREWORD BY THE EDITORS
In June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the First Amendment’s free exercise clause prohibits the government from excluding religious schools from school choice programs. The decision, Espinoza v. Montana , is momentous. Supporters of parental choice in education, including Jack Coons for more than half of a century, have long fought for the principle endorsed by Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion: preventing schools from accessing public resources because they are religious is unjust, born of bigotry, and ought to end. Their arguments have, at long last, prevailed. Countless children who would be best served by faith-based schools will benefit from the Court’s decision, which clears away major legal and political hurdles to the expansion of parental choice.
Few voices have been as influential, for as long, in debates about American education policy as Jack Coons’s. His steadfast, unrelenting, and clarion call for parental choice, reflected in these pages, and many, many more, is finally bearing fruit. The vast majority of American schoolchildren continue to attend public schools, but momentum for parental choice has accelerated exponentially in recent years. Today, thirty-one states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have publicly funded private-school-choice programs. These programs enable more than six-hundred thousand children to attend private and faith-based schools. And, forty-four states authorize public charter schools, which enroll more than 3.4 million children, or 7.2 percent of all public-school students. This dramatic expansion in the educational options available to families, especially disadvantaged ones, is the result of a complex array of political and legal factors. But no single factor has been more important than proponents’ embrace of the argument that parental choice is, at its core, about opportunity, equality, and dignity rather than efficiency and competition. As Terry Moe has observed, “The modern arguments for vouchers have less to do with free markets than with . . . the commonsense notion that disadvantaged kids should never be forced to attend failing schools and that they should be given as many attractive options as possible.” 1
Jack Coons not only anticipated, but in many ways originated, that crucial shift in focus. Many of the essays republished here were written decades ago. Yet they presciently outlined, anticipated, and advocated policy reforms, including private-school choice and charter schools (see chapter 2’s proposal for New Public Schools) years before these policies became a reality anywhere in the United States. Jack has been more than an advocate for parental choice, he has been its prophet. Throughout his long and distinguished career, Coons has argued that education policies, and especially parental choice policies, ought to focus on empowering the disadvantaged and marginalized, rather than on increasing standardized test scores. As he wrote in a seminal article reproduced here, “school choice is simple justice.” It gives voice to the voiceless and power to the powerless. Jack’s words echo today in the halls of state legislatures debating parental-choice programs, they are reflected on the faces of parents who gather at rallies demanding more for their children that our education system has given them to date, and they are now enshrined in the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence. They are powerful words, as the essays reproduced in this volume remind us all.
We are grateful to Jack Coons for his powerful words on behalf of families, especially those who are most vulnerable, and for the opportunity to publish his essays in this volume. We are also grateful to the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives and the Notre Dame Law School for supporting our work on this project and for the editing assistance of Alicia Cummins and Notre Dame Law School students Timothy Borgerson, Mitchell Koppinger, Paige Lommerin, Ross D’Entremont, and Carter Wietecha.
FOREWORD
Jesse Choper
It has been my distinct pleasure to have known the pioneer of school choice, John (Jack) Coons, for the better part of fifty years, both as a distinguished colleague at UC Berkeley and as a civil rights advocate. Since the 1960s, Jack has continually vocalized the debate over education choices in our school system and the deeply fundamental rights of children within that “system.” He has articulated his beliefs throughout his teaching, publications, books, speeches, and even blogs. In our society that has ever-increasingly removed any discussion of God from the topic of education, Jack does not fail to pose the ethical and religious components of educational choice as an inalienable right of children.
We may differ on some of our beliefs, but I am confident that through Jack’s thorough explanations and reasoning I have become better equipped to understand exactly what is at stake when considering the evolution of the education system in the United States. Jack’s extreme intelligence along with his gentle humor are salves on an otherwise overwhelmingly confusing topic. His humility would prevent his agreement with my compliments, but everyone who has been fortunate enough to spend time with Jack has become more informed and enlightened on their view of the current state of educational choice and personal freedoms.
Given our ever-changing politics, school choice in education is once again rising to the forefront of debates. Whether or not the child’s rights extend to religious schools is also on the line. Without a doubt, Jack will continue to share his wealth of knowledge, experience, and insight with all who are interested.
PREFACE
John E. Coons
Why, in so many cases, does the state appoint professional strangers—the “public” school—to conscript the children of our poor and working-class families to serve 180 days a year for 13 years in government-operated schools that parents would shun, if only they had the resources either to better their residence or to pay private tuition? Why does U.S. law—unlike most of Europe—impose what we mislabel a “public” school upon such families when, instead, the state could deploy these same resources to honor family preferences about their children’s schools?
This observer has grown old and boring striving to answer this question. I have on occasion promoted parental choice politically, but primarily by writing books (with the admirable Stephen Sugarman) and essays of the kind in this collection. I am deeply grateful for University of Notre Dame Press for making this volume possible.
Many are the justifications I have heard offered for our government school system, one that musters the child of the poor like a draftee but gives choice only to those of sufficient resources, according to their parents’ preferences. I will try to suggest the diverse nature of these apologies. Some are devices of special interests, such as the educational bureaucracy and the teachers unions, who strive to maximize clientele. There are also unspoken but evident convictions