Vouchers Are Not the Answer

To the editors:

Vasant M. Kamath claims (Op-ed, April 27) that vouchers for private schools would "alleviate the crisis in American public education." Nothing is farther from the truth. Vouchers give government money to parents so that they can send their children to private or parochial schools. Advocates of the voucher system say allowing parents of poorer children to choose private schools will cause all schools to compete in a market system and will produce a more effective and efficient educational system.

However, research shows that voucher systems in Cleveland and Milwaukee were not effective. Cleveland voucher students did markedly worse than their public-school counterparts on standard tests. Mark Peterson's studies used to support alleged gains by voucher students have been criticized for serious sampling errors and unfair comparisons.

Free market efficiency comparisons between vouchers and public schools are not valid. Since public schools must provide education for all students, they have special burdens (costs in free market terminology) that private schools do not bear. For the voucher market to be truly competitive, the government would have to pay subsidies to public schools for the special social burden they alone must bear, and provide lead time to make use of this subsidy.

Another cost that public but not private schools are required to bear is the special standards they must meet for hiring teachers, testing students, choosing curricula and public reporting. Giving public money to a private school provides a blank check for instilling any values in that school that its patrons want, even those we as a community would reject. Due to our communal social discourse about the public school system, schools have been able to promote racial and social integration. Vouchers may lead to increased self-segregation.

Finally, rather than providing an incentive for public schools to improve, vouchers would take needed money and political support away from this system. Indeed, despite the rhetoric, the true goal for most advocates of vouchers is not to help public education but to transfer public money to church and suburban schools that serve the better-off white middle class.

Public schools can succeed if they have adequate community involvement, funding and teaching standards. If you have doubts, talk to one of your classmates from Boston Latin. When the students and parents who are most concerned about education withdraw from public schools using vouchers, these institutions will decline further. Students that remain will suffer. These students-at-risk are ignored at society's peril.

Polls show that voters don't want vouchers at the expense of public schools. What they want in smaller class sizes and better reading programs. Public schools are in great need of improvement. We have a system in place that has the potential to provide good education for all Americans; we're just not using it. The answer does not lie in dismantling this system, but in investing a serious effort, every year and everywhere, to make it work. JANE H. MARTIN '00   April 28, 1999