Interpreting School Vouchers: Policy Tool or Conservative Reform?

• In Event: Roundtable Session 124
  In Roundtable Session: Educational Reform and Free Markets

Abstract

In the Post World War II United States, school vouchers served several purposes. They were first enacted as tuition grants in southern states in opposition to Brown. They also appealed to parochial school supporters seeking a share of federal support, and, at a more abstract level, to neo-classical economists unsettled by the New Deal. By the 1980s a new justification emerged: vouchers to counteract shortcomings of urban public schools. How do we interpret the rise of school vouchers? Are they a "policy tool": a mechanism for funding the schools that is embraced by various advocates, or are vouchers an outcome of a resurgent American conservatism? This paper explores both interpretations.

Author

• Jim Carl, Sacred Heart University