SPECIAL COMMENTARY

Voices For Vouchers

MATTHEW BROOKS
AND SETH LEIBSOHN

Special to the Jewish News

or several years now, the
establishment in the Jewish
community has rigorously
and vigorously opposed
parental choice in education and
school vouchers.
For reasons we have never clearly
understood, this government-
enhanced measure of economic jus-
tice, providing the poor with the same
educational opportunities as the
wealthy, remains an anathema to a
community that would benefit itself at
the same time that it would benefit
the rest of the society in which it lives.
Including the arguments for equity
and economic justice, there are several
reasons we and many on the liberal side
of the political spectrum, including for-
mer U.S. Rep. Floyd Flake and Sen.
Joseph Lieberman, support school
choice. Speaking for our own communi-
ty, every Jewish organization concerned
with the fate of Jewish assimilation,
from B'nai Kith to the American Jew-
ish Committee, agrees that Jewish edu-
cation is the road that will lead us out of
our assimilationist wilderness.
Still, Jews have always been con-
cerned and affiliated with a strong

Matthew Brooks is executive director of

the Jewish Policy Center, a think tank
based in Washington, D. C Seth Leib-
sohn is the center's director of policy.

iates of the Society for Humanistic
Judaism, in which all individuals are
welcome and can grow and celebrate
their connection to Judaism. Secular
Humanistic Judaism maintains that
ethics and morality should serve
human needs — chiefly, the preserva-
tion of dignity and integrity. Secular
Humanistic Jews affirm their connec-
tion to the Jewish people and to Jew-
ish history and culture in celebrations
that are meaningful expressions of
their beliefs and contemporary way of
life.
M. Bonnie Cousens

executive director,
Society for Humanistic Judaism
Farmington Hills

commitment to the education system
that not only serves them, but the rest
of the population as well. We have
long believed that what is good for
America is good for Jews.
Yet, there is no question that Amer-
ican public schools are failing our chil-
dren, and something needs to be done
about it.
Only 31 percent of fourth-graders,
33 percent of eighth-graders, and 40
percent of 12th-graders today can meet
basic literacy proficiency standards.
Proving that the longer one stays in
school today the worse-off one is, 38
percent of fourth-graders, 26 percent of
eighth-graders, and 23 percent of 12th-
graders score below basic reading levels.
Sending and subjecting our children
to schools producing these results is no
virtue and does our children no favor.
Alarmist concerns that school
choice and vouchers will end our inte-
grationist desires are as ill-founded as
the argument that there is no proof
that private school students perform
better than public school students.
Furthermore, those who can now
afford to send their children to private
schools but who consign those of less-
er means to sending their children to
public schools are guided by either
chutzpa or elitism.
Most school choice programs are
based on a $2,500 voucher. According
to the Department of Education, the
average cost of private elementary
schooling is just less than that. The aver-
age cost of all private schools (primary

and secondary) is just above $3,000.
School vouchers would go a long way
toward providing the opportunities to
parents who want to send their children
to private schools but cannot afford to
do so. The financially less fortunate
should have the same educational
opportunities as our public servants.
Bill Clinton and Al Gore sent their
children to private schools at the ele-
mentary and secondary education lev-
els. Why should we be satisfied with
anything less for our children?
Some believe that empowering par-
ents to use their vouchers to send their
children to religious schools will erode
the separation between church and
state. This fear is unfounded.
Under the voucher system, parents
will have the option of using their
vouchers to send their children to
either non-sectarian schools or schools
with the affiliation of their choice.
The parents can and should decide for
themselves.
For those who want to send their
children to Jewish schools, the
Supreme Court has held that when
individuals spend the money (as
opposed to the government), there is
no First Amendment violation.
Furthermore, since 1925 the
Supreme Court has recognized that
parents have the liberty to direct the
upbringing and education of their
children.
For the most part, the Orthodox Jew-
ish community has proven impervious
to assimilation and oblivion. This is

because they enroll their children in
schools committed to Jewish education.
Yet, as Elliott Abrams notes: "The ele-
ments of the Jewish community having
the greatest difficulty keeping their chil-
dren Jewish use the courts to attack the
practice by which elements having the
greatest success keep their children Jew-
ish." For those parents who would
rather not send their children to Ortho-
dox schools, the Reform and Conserva-
tive schools provide equally respectable
options.
School choice is the most readily
apparent solution to the problem of
assimilation. It would also stimulate
the competition necessary to improve
public schools. It is a fact that compe-
tition creates excellence (as it did with
Detroit auto makers competing
against foreign auto makers).
School choice is the new civil rights
cause of our age. For example, the
Joint Center for Political and Eco-
nomic Studies has shown that, nation-
ally, over 60 percent of the black com-
munity supports school choice. It is
curious that some self-styled civil lib-
ertarians oppose school choice."
If the major Jewish organizations
could remove themselves from their lock
step adherence to the arguments of yes-
terday, they would find themselves in
step with their own diagnoses regarding
Jewish continuity on the one hand, and
equal opportunity for the rest of society
on the other. It's unfortunate that some-
times there is nothing quite so mystify-
ing as the obvious. ❑

Excesses
Not Rampant

Census Video
Gets It Wrong

In Celebrate!, you decry the excess-
es of bar and bat mitzvah parties ("Bar
Mitzvah Madness," March 31).
Although I cannot deny that some
parties are overdone, I have been
touched by the actions of two families
who used books as centerpieces, which
they then donated to the Jewish Acad-
emy of Metropolitan Detroit. They
can take credit for helping to build
our school library's nascent Judaica
collection and enhancing the opportu-
nities for serious learning among the
next generation of Jews.
Rabbi Lee Buckman

A U.S. Census video did the new
Americans from Russia no service
when it told them to check "white" on
the 2000 census form ("Getting To
`Da,'" March 31). In the former Sovi-
et Union, being Jewish was considered
negative. But in the United States,
being Jewish is positive. By telling
them to check "white," the video rein-
forced the concept that their Jewish
heritage was something to be ashamed
of.
For the U.S. Census, our family
checked ourselves as "other." We did
this because we are proud Jews,
unafraid to declare that we are not like
everyone else. The general United
States population understands that.

Black Americans do not consider the
Jewish people to be "white." White
Americans do not consider us to be
"white." Both groups are absolutely
correct.
We, the Jewish people, are more
than a culture, a religion, a nationality
or a single racial group. We are greater
than the sum of our many-faceted
parts. We are the sum of our thou-
sands of years of experience. We are
multi-racial. =
Therefore, to cubbyhole us into a
tiny corner of who we are gives a false
impression to us and to the U.S gov-
ernment. Our family is proud to be an
"other!"
Harriet Drissman

head of school,
Jewish Academy of Metropolitan Detroit
West Bloomfield

Farmington Hills.

4/7
2000

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