The call for a voucher system continued, but the ar-
guments shifted. During the 1980’s, many in the
American middle class continued to rely on public
education. “White flight” from major urban centers
into suburbia allowed public education to provide
for middle-class needs, because the concentration of
relative wealth in the suburbs meant that public
schools located there were better funded than were
schools in urban, working-class districts. As long
as the educational needs of the middle class were
met, the perceived need to privatize education was
minimal.
During the 1980’s, the Reagan and George H. W.
Bush administrations pushed for educational re-
form. Since their conservative, middle-class support-
ers continued to be served by public education, re-
form efforts shifted away from privatization. Still,
the concept of a voucher program fit well into some
versions of the political ideology advocating re-
duced government involvement in family life—
despite the fact that it entailed more federal inter-
vention in local affairs. Vouchers were seen as a
means of enabling parents to send their children to
whichever schools would best meet their children’s
needs, regardless of whether or not those schools
charged tuition. However, during the 1980’s, little
action was seen on this front. Congress rejected Rea-
gan administration plans to grant tuition tax credits,
and the school choice movement remained primar-
ily active only among ultraconservatives.
Impact Many opponents of voucher programs
pointed to educational funding gaps as the principal
reason for American educational woes. Public schools
were thought to fail poor and minority schools for a
number of reasons, including the national structure
for allocating public school resources between and
among schools and school districts. Voucher pro-
grams, according to the critics, would have further
exacerbated the situation. The worst schools, those
most in need of resources, would be the least attrac-
tive to potential students. Therefore, they would be
the schools most likely to suffer low enrollments and
financial cuts if parents were able to use vouchers to
send their children to private schools. Thus, it was
argued, by channeling money away from the poorest
public schools and instead providing public subsi-
dies to private schools, vouchers would help individ-
ual students at the expense of the overall system.
The parents of those individual students, however,
were likely to support the voucher idea, because
their first loyalties were to their children, not to their
public schools.Further Reading
Friedman, Milton.Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1962. Friedman’s
seminal work provides the definitive statement of
his immensely influential economic philosophy.
Gross, B., and R. Gross.The Great School Debate. New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1985. Claims the popular
notion that current education reforms such as
privatization, vouchers, and charter schools are
responses to an identified crisis in public educa-
tion requires further scrutiny.
Kirkpatrick, David.School Choice: The Idea That Will
Not Die. Mesa, Ariz.: Blue Bird, 1997. Detailed
overview of the history of the school voucher con-
cept, including an examination of the various it-
erations of voucher programs and plans.
Levin, Henry.Privatizing Education. Boulder, Colo.:
Westview Press, 2001. Explores the voucher de-
bate from a perspective at once domestic and
global, demonstrating how it is uniquely Ameri-
can while not necessarily based on educational
philosophy.
National Commission on Excellence in Education.
A Nation at Risk. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Depart-
ment of Education, 1983. Landmark study of
American education during the early 1980’s. De-
cries the state of education and warns of a “rising
tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future
as a Nation and a people.”
Ravitch, Diane.Left Back: A Centur y of Failed School Re-
forms.New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. Pro-
vides an overview of a century of “progressive” re-
forms in the K-12 educational sector.
Rick PearceSee also Consumerism; Education in Canada; Ed-
ucation in the United States; Magnet schools;
Mainstreaming in education; Multiculturalism in
education;Nation at Risk, A; National Education
Summit of 1989; Reagan, Ronald; Reaganomics.The Eighties in America School vouchers debate 851