Guest View: Make school choice debate about vision of democracy

The "Our View" article last week, titled "Private schools fade away," is confusing. The main problem discussed in the article is that private schools in Cloquet have struggled to maintain enrollment over the past few decades. Early on, the article discusses an attempt by St. Paul's Academy to "become more inclusive of other congregations" by changing its name to Cloquet Christian Academy. The inclusivity initiative failed to keep the school open, and St. Paul's closed its doors. The article makes it sound as though that school operated for a decade or two, in total. Yet, the article inexplicably ends with the opinion that Queen of Peace Catholic School - which is more than a century old and in the longest continuously operating school building in Cloquet - should attempt to bolster its lagging enrollment by trading in its Catholic identity and trying the very "ecumenical private school" tactic that failed for St Paul's Academy. That doesn't add up.

The issue for private schools in Cloquet, or anywhere in Minnesota, is that our real-life communities aren't empowered by our state education policy. By establishing a monopoly of access to tax-derived education funds, the state makes it unaffordable for parents to send kids anywhere but to public schools. To make matters worse, Minnesota has a Blaine Amendment on our constitution. These amendments are based in bigotry against Catholics but were popular in the 19th century and exist in 37 states today. They prohibit religious families from accessing our tax dollars for our own schools. So those of us who send our kids to Queen of Peace must pay twice: once for a public system that teaches ideologies in conflict with our faith, and then again to cover the cost of our community's school so that our children can be affirmed in their most fundamental identities, as Catholics. I believe that's un-American. Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme court will soon hear a case (Espinoze v. Montana Dept of Revenue) that could find Blaine amendments like the one in Minnesota unconstitutional. Let us pray that this happens.

According to information on the State of Minnesota website, a single student in public school is allotted close to $12,000 per year. The cost per student at Queen of Peace these days is about $8,000 (although we keep tuition lower). If Minnesotans want to be serious about celebrating the diverse communities and beliefs that exist in our state, the solution is not to ask Catholic schools to become less Catholic and more ecumenical, nor is it to grant an educational monopoly to one mega-system that continually requires more funds without ever increasing achievement results. It is to trust parents with access to our own tax dollars for education. Parents and communities that believe in God have the same rights as those that don't. Let us allocate the funds in ways that represent us: to public schools, to parochial schools, to private academies, even to support parents who homeschool (they get the best achievement results, after all). That would be diversity. That would show tolerance. That would be representative democracy. That would be a game-changer.

National School Choice Week is Jan. 26-Feb. 1. Contact your state representatives and let them know you stand for putting students first, for trusting parental decision-making, and for empowering real communities by expanding school choice options in Minnesota.

David Douglas is principal at Queen of Peace. Reach him at 218-879-8516 or [email protected]