This is the fourth in a series of brief observations on the ideal technical design of state systems using “vouchers” as the means to empower parents to choose their child’s school. Vouchers are to be distinguished from tax credits; the latter fund parents indirectly through private contributions to charitable organizations, thus reducing the donor’s tax liability; the whole or part of the contribution can be credited against the contributor’s taxes. The charity then awards scholarships either to schools or to families whom it selects from among its applications.

By contrast, the voucher is simply an award of government money directly to the parents to be used for the child’s tuition at their chosen school. Vouchers will be our subject.

Why are rules important here? Why not just let the two parties - parent and school - bargain? If either says no, Suzie goes elsewhere. Such a system is imaginable, but in this society, improbable and possibly unjust. Rules of admissions are perhaps the most controversial element in the design of systems of choice - certainly of vouchers. Consider the following cases:

Susie’s mother wants her in Mozart High which emphasizes music as the medium of learning. Susie is tone deaf and hates music. Should she, by law, displace Jim, the gifted student next behind her in the lottery run by the school? And why must the school be using a lottery in the first place? And why shouldn’t the more gifted child simply have precedence?

Or, try this one. Arthur, who is black, also drew the short stick in the lottery. The school - otherwise all white - wants to admit him. Of course, to do so, someone else must get bumped.

Or, again, a disabled child wants entry to St. Cecilia, a small Catholic school with no facilities to accommodate her and no resources to redesign the school. What’s the point of forcing her admission?

Schools differ greatly in virtually every respect except in their (presumed) capacity to teach “the basics” as these are defined by law in the particular state. Furthermore, with respect to the basics, schools are free to employ a very wide range of methods. Often it is important that the pupil population come prepared to do it the school’s distinctive way. Still it is also crucial that kids who are less attractive to the school have the benefit of their parents’ choice.

Of course, long before the problem of admission even arises, a school may advertise, both positively and negatively, in order to maximize those applications it desires. It may also try directly to dissuade the unwelcome parent. In addition (as noted earlier in Essay #2) the school may, with fair warning and due process, expel a student who, after a fair trial, simply doesn’t make it. Still, the process of choice by the school itself can be confounded, for example, by an unexpected bubble of applications from children who “just don’t fit.” St. Cecilia, a Catholic school, may wish the best for Muslim applicants, but their sheer number may present a serious pedagogical problem. Like our current leaders on the Potomac, schools and parents need both a spirit of - and a mechanism for - compromise. (more…)