IN THEORY
Public vs. Private Education
| Q: |
Jews and Catholics are reportedly calling for government policies and funding that would allow parents to send their children to private schools with the aid of public funds. The idea is to help parents meet the high cost of religious schools. Critics say vouchers take money away from public schools and funnel it to private religious schools, unfairly. What do you think? Should the government money go to such a cause?
| A: |
I approach the issue of public vs. private education from a different perspective because most of my work is with families and students that are confounded by the public school system. I have also administered a parochial day school, and know that there are trade-offs for the 'luxury' of private education.
But as a priest, I hope to add a religious dimension to this debate, which goes beyond a mere exercise in funding parochial agendas. Private schools and the debate over vouchers are an indictment of the failings of public schools. This becomes more apparent as more and more parents opt for parochial education for their children, not on dogmatic grounds as much as on quality of education and safety issues.
The fundamental philosophy of education should be to pass along knowledge to subsequent generations, to form the building blocks to tomorrow's society. But what good is building society only to have it toppled by misdirected political motives? Vouchers do not take away money from education, rather it is the massive budgets for destruction and war that devastate our classrooms and even greater, prevent us from dreaming of a better tomorrow.
We need to be talking about our direction as a society. This is not a discussion of private vs. public education. Instead, it's about prioritizing the challenge to provide the best education for everyone. We have the money to do this, vouchers or not. We need to rework our budgets so that spending is off-balance in favor of the classroom rather than military growth. Investing in our children will bring a much better and a higher yield than investing in the destruction of foreign governments and lands. Our military spending is no longer confined under "defense" and so, let us be honest and talk about the best offensive strategy for our country. I believe we can find it in educating our children so that they dream of better tomorrows for us, our society and our world.
FATHER VAZKEN MOVSESIAN
Armenian Church
In His Shoes Mission
