The Rio Grande Foundation

Last month we expounded on potential for improvement of education through school choice, to wit: a market-like structure for education would encourage innovation, creativity and experimentation.

One criticism oft heard is that school choice would lead to state-sponsorship of religion. The argument goes like this: Private schools are predominately affiliated with religious institutions. In fact, 75 per cent of such schools are Catholic. With such a religious emphasis in private schools, the massive subsidizing of them with a true school choice program would lead to de facto state-sponsorship of religion.

The problem with the argument is that it confuses what is with what might be. Once education is opened up to competition, there is no reason to think that families will choose disproportionately Catholic schools or any other religious affiliation. After all, it will be families, not the state, personally doing the choosing.

If there is a massive increase in demand for private education (as there would be under a true school choice scenario), it will lead to entrepreneurial opportunities for potential education professionals. That's the whole idea of school choice. So, we can predict that the market for education will respond to the wants of the education consumer. The exact direction of those wants will evolve over time as education consumers exercise their freedom of choice. But there is no reason to think that such evolution would lead to an unnatural religious equilibrium that would offend or interfere with individuals' freedom of religious choice.

Last month we mentioned an important caveat necessary for school choice to work: It must not come with strings attached in the form of centralized requirements dictated by Santa Fe and Washington. Any attempt to prohibit the teaching of values associated with religions (as has been suggested by some critics) is just the kind of dictate that will doom school choice. Such a prohibition would be akin to Soviet style advocacy of atheism. Religious freedom means the state stays neutral on religion. People decide their religious values, individually and personally.

Other public transfers from taxpayers to recipients have not led to state-sponsorship of religion: social security recipients, welfare recipients and veterans-education recipients often spend some of their stipend in support of various religions or religious institutions. No one is offended, and no one's religious freedom is interfered with. The state stays neutral, as it should according to the law of the land. Let's not let bogus arguments about religious freedom stop us from improving education through school choice.