By Philip Vassallo, Ed.D.
Families, Freedom and Education: Why School Choice Makes Sense by Jennifer Buckingham. St Leonards, New South Wales: Centre for Independent Studies Policy Monograph 52, 2001 (http://www.cis.org.au/). 100 pp, xi.
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court agreed last month to hear a case on a modified voucher program in Cleveland, the idea of school choice has finally reached the judicial platform it deserves. As reported in the media, at issue is whether American citizens can choose for their children any education without paying the penalty of tuition compounded onto their school taxes. A far greater issue, however, will also gain national attention (though I doubt the Supreme Court will go so far as to resolve it), namely, whether we should continue to restrict the definition of public education to one administered by government schools?
This issue is not the exclusive province of the United States, as Jennifer Buckingham so skillfully reveals in Families, Freedom and Education: Why School Choice Makes Sense, published by the Centre for Independent Studies, an Australian think tank. Early on in this slim but comprehensive volume, Ms. Buckingham quickly establishes clear distinctions between the way Australia and America fund education. Perhaps because of Australia’s smaller population (one-fourteenth of the USA’s), relative cultural homogeneity, and less contentious legal and social history, its politics has not been obsessed to the same extent as the USA’s over matters such as public funding of private schooling and separation of church and state. (Australia does provide substantial, albeit limited, funds to private schools, and the proportion of children in Australian non-government schools is nearly three times greater than in American schools-31% to 12%.) Despite their differences, what the countries have in common is their unqualified support of public schools. Withdrawing funding from floundering public school is unthinkable, while private schools that fail to educate their students will soon go out of business. This fact, among others, serves as a springboard for Buckingham’s argument that “school choice offers a way … to enhance the education opportunities and quality available to children.”
The book briefly reviews the history of Australian education to illustrate how legislation contributes, indirectly or not, to marketplace pressures on the education industry. Buckingham cites indisputable statistics in observing that an increasing number of parents are sending their children to non-government schools, eroding the government school share of the market. Contrary to the popular belief that only the wealthy send their children to private schools, these parents represent the entire Australian socioeconomic spectrum, choosing non-government education at a great financial burden to themselves-and a huge economic relief to the government. (The state and federal share of education costs to government schools total $6,425 Australian compared to $3,790 Australian for non-government schools.)
Buckingham dedicates most of her study to discussing the ten main school choice issues, ranging from cost considerations to possibilities for integration, and she concludes with an examination of what she believes stands as a reasonable option for realizing universal choice: the tuition tax credit. She does not gloss over difficulties associated with administering a universal tuition tax credit; however, she cogently suggests that tax credits provide all schools an opportunity to reap the benefits of a market model of education, all families an equal chance to obtain the best education for their children, and all citizens the best return for their tax dollar. This contribution from half a world away to the emergent American literature on the subject (most notably from the Cato Institute, Sutherland Institute, and Mackinac Center for Public Policy) should strengthen the position that all education should be-and can be-public.
Philip Vassallo, Ed.D., is an educational consultant and columnist focusing on the education industry.
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