Educational Choice: A Discussion Guide

Preface to the Discussion

Using this Discussion Guide

"Educational Choice: Promise or Threat?" invites members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to discuss education and schooling for children and youth in the United States and Caribbean. It aims to provide an informative and balanced resource to enable ELCA Lutherans to talk together about the issues surrounding educational choice.

This discussion guide is designed for use by groups in congregations, Lutheran schools and other settings in our church. It establishes a framework, presents the issues, describes different viewpoints and poses questions to help users develop an informed and responsible attitude toward educational choice.

You are encouraged to do the following to create a setting for fruitful discussion:

1. Select interested and able leadership for the class. The leader or leaders should have a thorough knowledge of the discussion guide. Leaders will need to take time to plan carefully the class sessions, and they will need to be able to facilitate discussion. They do not necessarily have to be the group's "experts" on educational choice.

2. Determine the structure for the class. The ideal is for all participants to have their own copy of the study, read the designated material before the class, and use the class time to review the reading and discuss the issues raised. In setting expectations, be realistic but challenging. Normally, a group will need at least six sessions to study the whole guide. A group may decide to spend more time on the subject or select certain topics and spend less time.

3. Adapt the discussion guide to your own situation. Supplement this resource with material from your own community and state. If there are teachers, principals or school board members in your congregation, invite them to participate in the class. You may want to ask them or others in your community to talk with the class. Encourage participants to clip newspaper articles, tape TV stories, collect information by computer, and share what they have found with the group.

4. Set the ground rules for discussion. People often have strong views on educational choice. Create an open and respectful environment so that passionate, fair and constructive dialogue can occur. Stress the importance of listening to different views and of making one's own remarks brief. Ensure that people who have studied the topic before and those who are doing so for the first time are welcome and encouraged to talk.

5. Pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Recall your unity in the Christian faith. As you discuss what may sometimes be disputed facts and difficult ideas, remember that your concern is for children, youth, women and men. When you are tempted to take yourselves too seriously, hope that a dash of friendly humor will put things in proper perspective.

Introduction

The Topic

In many states in the 1990s, "educational choice" is one of the hotly debated public policy questions. Many view proposals for educational choice as holding "promise" for improving our children's education. Others view the same proposals as a "threat" to our country's educational system. Still others are perplexed or uncertain about the merits and drawbacks of these proposals.

This discussion guide looks at the overarching issues in this debate. Its focus is on the basic ideas and principles rather than on the details of specific legislative proposals. While public interest in specific proposals is likely to rise or fall according to the situation, the overarching issues are bound to be with us for some time. A glance at the "Contents" indicates the significant themes that are addressed.

This study does not advocate that you should oppose or favor educational choice. By using this guide, however, you should be better prepared to understand the reasons why some people think that it is a promise and others a threat. You may still be perplexed or uncertain about some issues, but you should also be better equipped to take part in the public debate about educational choice.

In this study, "educational choice" means public policy in which government financially assists parents who choose to enroll their children in private and religious as well as public schools. Government funding follows the child. The policy applies to students in elementary and secondary schools. Note that in the sense used in this guide, "educational choice" includes schools operated by religious bodies.

At present, the most commonly discussed mechanism to implement this policy is a voucher system. In one version of this system families receive a certificate for school tuition that they may use to pay for a child's education in any public or private school that they select and that will enroll the child. Another mechanism sometimes proposed is tax credits.

Why Talk About this in the Church?

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America encourages its congregations to be "communities of moral deliberation." Congregations enjoy unique opportunities to deliberate together on the relationship of their faith and the issues of daily life, and people with diverse callings and perspectives find their unity in a common faith.

Faith in the Gospel does not take us out of the messy world in which we live. Christians, Lutherans emphasize, glorify God by serving others in their ordinary callings as parents, educators, students and citizens. God orders and blesses life through the common structures of society, and Christians are called to work with others for the common good of society. Confident in God's love and forgiveness given in Jesus Christ, we are freed to take part fully yet humbly in debates and decisions about public policy.

In stressing the importance of education and schools and in considering educational public policy, Lutherans are following a tradition that goes back to Martin Luther. Early in the Reformation, Luther appealed to city councils to establish and maintain Christian schools. In support of his appeal he wrote, "A city's best and greatest welfare, safety, and strength consist...in its having many able, learned, wise, honorable, and well-educated citizens." In "The Large Catechism," Luther wrote, "The wise men of old were right when they said, 'God, parents, and teachers can never be sufficiently thanked and repaid.'"

There are many reasons why congregations should deliberate about public policy for education and schools. These reasons include concern for children and young people in our communities and throughout the country, especially for children who are poor and presented with limited opportunities for a decent education; parents in their responsibility to provide good education for their children; members who live out their baptismal calling as teachers, principals, board members or workers in public, private and Lutheran schools; the civility of public debate; good schools and just public policies; and Lutheran schools.

A Lutheran social statement, "The Nature of the Church and Its Relationship with Government," recommended that in order to maximize the access of citizens in our pluralistic society to education and social services from agencies and institutions of their choice the Lutheran Council [in the U.S.A.] encourage the further exploration and assessment of all constitutional means of government support for a variety of social and educational services at all levels, whether public, private, or church-related. This study is a resource to encourage members to explore and assess whether or not educational choice is a constitutional means to increase citizens' access to educational services.

Differences and Common Ground

ELCA Lutherans, it is safe to say, do not agree on whether educational choice is good or bad public policy. Not only should we expect disagreement in the church on this and other public policy issues, we should also affirm and welcome it.

With educational choice, we are talking about how citizens should order their common life in society. We are not debating the center of the Christian faith. That center, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is equally for sinners who favor educational choice and sinners who oppose it. People's positions on public policy do not determine if they are Christians or not. There is no one "biblical" or "Christian" position. We may disagree and debate the issue without calling into question the unity of the church or the Christian integrity of those who may differ with us.

There is unity in our disagreements. Our Lutheran understanding of God's Word of Law and Gospel provides a common perspective for us. Faith in the Gospel, we confess, frees us from self-centeredness and frees us for commitment to the good of all children. Motivated by the Gospel and bound by God's Law, we rely on human reason and experience as we seek to discern whether educational choice serves this good or not. Scripture instructs us, and we draw upon the church's traditions for insight. These traditions include the social statements on education from the former American Lutheran Church (ALC) and the Lutheran Church in America (LCA). (The ELCA has not spoken officially on educational choice.)

Within our church and society there are ideas and ideals concerning education and schooling that are shared by people who may disagree on educational policy. The following affirmations attempt to state some of these points of agreement without pre-determining a specific position on educational choice. Their purpose is to provide a common framework for people to discuss and understand their differences. Your group will need to test these affirmations to see if they fulfill that purpose for you.

1. Citizens should seek high quality educational opportunity that serves everyone living in the United States according to their needs and that contributes to the common good.

2. Education begins at birth and continues throughout all of life. Formalized structured education occurs especially during an intense period in childhood through early adulthood.

3. Family, church, state and formal educational structures share responsibility for providing quality education.

4. Education should nurture responsible personhood in community, lead to a responsible way of life in a diverse and complex society, provide the necessary information and skills for life in a technological world, and foster appreciation of the arts and humanities.

5. Educational opportunity should not be limited due to unjust discrimination on the basis of race, income, gender, geography, disability, health, sexual orientation, religion, country of origin or legal status.

6. Both governmental and non-governmental institutions should play a role in providing educational opportunity.

7. Public taxation should provide for pre-school, elementary and secondary education.

8. Citizens should seek a just distribution of educational resources so that all students may have fair access to education in a secure and healthy environment.

9. Educational policy should respect the First Amendment's right of free exercise of religion, its prohibition against establishing religion, and the "institutional separation and functional interaction" of church and state, as stated in the ELCA Constitution.
 

Copyright © 1996 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Produced by the Department for Studies of the Division for Church in Society.  Permission is granted to reproduce this document as needed, provided copies are for local use only and each displays the copyright as printed above.