To the Editor:
I write to you as the President of the Urban League of Greater Miami in
regard to your recent editorial against tuition vouchers for K-12 school
children. Our organization sided with the mothers being sued in the
lawsuit against Opportunity Scholarships, joining with them as an
intervener. We did so because this lawsuit seeks to deny an important
and just opportunity to the children whose lives we know best - poor
children, largely minority. We also know that, if it succeeds, it will
quite certainly sweep away all other publicly supported tuition vouchers
in Florida that support the education of students both rich and poor,
from preschool through college.
I could not disagree more with your call upon the Florida Supreme Court
to "kill" Florida's Opportunity Scholarships program. Like the five
dissenting Justices in the DCA decision, I believe that you are deeply
mistaken on the constitutionality of these scholarships. But what I find
unspeakable is your charge that our Governor and legislature have harmed
the families by creating them.
The opposite is true. If harm is ultimately done and the scholarship
children are forced to leave the schools their parents chose for them -
to return to the schools that Florida Today prefers for them - it will
be perfectly clear who has hurt them. Their suffering then, as now, will
be entirely the work of the teachers unions, the People for the American
Way, the Florida NAACP, and newspapers like yours that cheered those
groups on in their lawsuit against the families that used the
scholarships.
Believe me, those parents know that Governor Bush and the Florida
Legislature provided lifeboats for their children out of chronically
low-performing schools. So far 700 families have been able to get their
children into them, only to find newspapers like yours trying to push
them back out. You may fool your readers with your callous disregard
masquerading as compassion. But you won't fool them and you haven't
fooled me.
Even the Justices who wrote this adverse opinion recognized that their
reading of this clause in the state Constitution would undo a program of
great good! In their conclusion, the judges acknowledged "the salutary
public policy" goal of the law to help students in low performing
schools get a better education. They were almost apologetic in saying
that they were obliged to interpret the words as written, disastrous as
that might be for the children affected. And they advised the citizenry
on what it could do to undo the harm:
"Nevertheless, courts do not have the authority to ignore the clear
language of the Constitution, even for a popular program with a worthy
purpose," Judge William Van Nortwick wrote for the court. "If Floridians
wish to remove or lessen the restrictions of the no-aid provision, they
can do so by constitutional amendment."
Unlike Florida Today, the Justices also carefully noted that such
tuition vouchers for K-12 children have been ruled constitutional by the
Supreme Court of the United States. Only because a differently worded
clause was introduced into the Florida Constitution in the 19th century
- a clause which quite evidently was motivated by anti-Catholic bigotry
- do we have this unacceptable conflict: What is permitted to our
children as citizens of the United States may be forbidden to them as
citizens of Florida. One might expect a responsible newspaper to call
for bringing the wording or our state Constitution in line with that of
the nation. Indeed, one Florida newspaper has called for just that. But
not Florida Today - it exploits the misbegotten clause to ridicule the
Governor and lawmakers.
I urge the readers of Florida Today to read the court decision itself.
Adverse as it is, to what I hope and believe to be true, it is written
with reason and care. You will see how the sensitivity of the court to
the effects of its decision contrasts with the glib delight of your
newspaper in calling for the "killing" of the scholarships.
In the morally offensive thinking of Florida Today, children born to
parents of modest means should be made to attend public schools, whether
they are successful or not. In the thinking of the Governor and Florida
Legislature those children should be able to attend successful schools,
whether they are public or not. The Governor and Legislature are right.
Florida Today is wrong. Here are some questions that might help Florida
Today examine its conscience:
* How can you possibly defend your position that well-to-do
families should be free to remove their children, for any reasons and in
any number, from schools where they are not learning; but if Governor
Bush and the Florida Legislature create a program that enables poor
families to do the same, you call on the Florida Supreme Court to "kill
it"?
* How can you call for the court to quickly put and end to a
program of parental choice - not because it will be better for the
children but because it will be better for the schools? The children
don't exist for the schools. The schools exist for the children. And if
the children are not learning, our first duty is to help them. If these
were failing public hospitals would you insist that the poor patients
ONLY stay put while the government figures out why so many are dying?
* How can you insist that all public education funds be spent at
public schools? Will you insist that all public healthcare funds
(Medicare and Medicaid) be spent at public health clinics? Will you
call on the Supreme Court to "kill" Florida's higher education vouchers
(Bright Futures Scholarships and many others) used by students to attend
private and faith-based colleges? Must all public housing dollars be
used to herd families into public housing projects? Or does it make
sense to provide families with vouchers to pay the rent at private homes
that work for them? Should we abolish food stamps (vouchers) that are
used at private supermarkets?
* How can you maintain that it is "illegal to use taxpayer dollars
for private schools" when school districts throughout the state already
contract with private schools to educate over 40,000 children? And those
are usually the children with the most severe problems in learning and
behavior. How is it constitutional for school districts to place
children in private schools with public funds but unconstitutional for
their parents to do the same?
* How can you hold that K-12 tuition vouchers are obviously
unconstitutional while all other vouchers are not? How can it be
unconstitutional for Florida families to use vouchers at an Episcopal
School, but not unconstitutional to use vouchers at a Catholic College,
a Baptist Hospital, or a Jewish Nursing Home? As the dissenting justices
argued in this split decision, if the Florida Constitution is read as
prohibiting state financial aid to citizens who choose to use it at
faith-based schools, then it just as surely prohibits state financial
aid to help them obtain all other faith-based services. Those services
include education from preschool through college, healthcare, eldercare,
and many others.
I have seen the days when self-righteous keepers of the constitution
stood at public schoolhouse doors to prevent Black American children
from entering. Today I see folks standing at the schoolhouse doors to
prevent the children from leaving. But now it is not just the Black
children; it is any child whose parents cannot afford to move their home
to the neighborhood of a better public school, or move their child into
a private school. Florida Today is no more than Florida Yesterday. And
like Florida Yesterday you are on the wrong side of truth, the wrong
side of justice, and the wrong side of history.
T. Willard Fair is a member of the National Board of BAEO. He is also President
Urban League of Greater Miami, Fla.