Blogging for the Newark, N.J. Star-Ledger, politicial science prof. Thurman Hart presents this objection to school vouchers:

[T]he effect of it would be that state, and maybe federal funds, would be used for the expressed [sic] purpose of teaching Catholic dogma. My opposition to that has nothing to do with my status as an Episcopalian — I don’t want All Saints Episcopalian Day School in Hoboken to get state funds to teach Episcopalian dogma

There is merit to his concern. Many of this nation’s early immigrants had fled compelled support for religion and other infrigements on their freedom of belief in their mother countries. But there is a way to avoid these problems while simultaneously ensuring educational freedom and choice for all: education tax credits.

These programs cut taxes on families who cover the cost of their own children’s education, and on individuals and businesses who donate to non-profit scholarship funds for lower-income students. If you choose to participate, you also choose the institution that gets your money — either the school you send your own children to or the scholarship orgnization that receives your contribution. In the latter case, you simply pick the scholarship fund you think is doing the best job helping low-income families.

If you don’t want to fund a religious education for Catholics or Muslims, you don’t have to. You can choose a secular scholarship fund or one serving Episcopalians, Jews or Hindus. For those not particularly sensitive to the religiosity of other families’ schooling, there are scholarship funds that make no religious distinctions at all.

This is a way to unite like-minded donors and parents without the use of compulsion, and without inhibiting the very freedom and clear sense of mission that are the entire raison-d’etre of school choice. It is also in the best spirit of individual liberty and cooperation among free people that we will be celebrating early next month…