Vouchers COLUMNISTS
Dionne, E.J. Jr.
understanding of God's power tends to apply to anything that matters most to mous) range of phenomena. The realm be distorted by such notions as God as us. I cannot be sure...
...Guilt is not an education polhis State of American Education speech who go into computing can earn an av- icy...
...El pared for evolution, subatomic physics, or cosmology...
...Experienced teachers average our consciences...
...when journalists question candidates cial interest rather than their interest...
...If there seems to be corre- African-Americans for school vouchers The best argument for vouchers was spondence between the Big Bang theory and also that Gore and his children "are framed nicely by Edwards and Greenand the biblical doctrine of creation, it is the product of private institutions...
...Why for something that was never a scientific horse races, polling, and in- shouldn't these parents conclude that statement in the first place...
...There is power that created the universe from ence, all it can ever find, this side of the something necessarily incomplete about nothing is revealed most completely on end, are clues, hints, things that may be it, but this is not to say that nothing is the cross...
...But if we don't feel guilty about last month to underscore one unin- erage of $40,920...
...The realm be distorted by such notions as God as us...
...As a safety ers are bid away from the teaching mar- say they believe in market economics valve for parents who desperately need ket...
...Our ideas of power, creation, so...
...Now consider this possibility: Both vate sector that potentially good teach- earns $63,072...
...The at the world for clues about God's pres- things unseen" (Hebrews 11: 1...
...Look, for example, at the joy some believers take in the Big Bang theory...
...How frontation between Al Gore and Bill Greenfield moment should not be the the universe came to be what it is, physi- Bradley at the Apollo Theater in Harlem last time the voucher question is joined...
...The allegation of Irish church life was given a major boost with the publiis not well documented, but it is a measure of the contro- cation before Christmas of Suffer the Little Children (New Isversy that swirled around McQuaid during his life that even land Books), by two researchers-also the subject of a TV Commonweal 9 March 10, 2000...
...Would the Judeo-Christian idea of creation be challenged in any serious way...
...Educating the poorest children in our society is not necessarily work that profit-making institutions would take on...
...It is "the assurance in mighty displays of power, and he is would be madness...
...cially for specialists, in exchange for more short-term balm, and as a prod to re- The problem is especially grave for rigorous standards...
...Belief opens us to something that want to have of God...
...Vouchers will not lead miraculously to the creation of thousands of new and vibrant schools...
...What is wrong with vouchers for the poorest children in the most broken school systems...
...But many of the faithful, concluding that there is no smoke withhe allegation, made in a new biography of John out fire, are simply averting their gaze in mute despair...
...0 graduates are now so high in the pri- $39,347...
...It schools because they don't have the fi- to fix an ailing school system in ten years is finally about those things that can be nancial resources that you do...
...field: Most parents will do anything in what Wittgenstein called a "charming" "Is there not a public or charter school their power to give their children a betidea, but it isn't very important...
...land...
...It can't be proven...
...Many well-known John Horgan liberals, who engaged in fierce critiques of McQuaid while he was alive, have attacked the biographer's use of anonyCATHOLIC IRELAND mous sources...
...We look for him are not what they seem...
...But the Edwardsis responsible for everything that is...
...Voucher advocates who these arguments are correct...
...The usual reply from voucher opponents might be called the supply argument...
...in D.C...
...What the teaching says, finally, is that about what we like to call "real issues...
...I cannot be sure that my wife loves of theology requires belief-and this is designer, playwright, punishing parent, me in the same way I can be sure that why those who claim that it can be one-who-would-do-what-I-would-do-if- the sun will rise tomorrow-that is, I can taught as well by an unbeliever as by a I-were-in-charge-of-this-mess, etc...
...doesn't sound very good to the parent of replicated experimentally, weighed, and Later, Jeff Greenfield of CNN pressed an eight-year-old...
...world is, but that it is, that is mystical...
...I would like, however, to challenge the Science is about the ever-more accu- Science is about the "how...
...God's convince myself that she is trying to fool believer seem to me to be seriously tonerevelation always upsets the ideas we me, that it is all a plot, that her motives deaf...
...We sensed, or known in any way...
...it cannot idea that we need a theology that is pre- rate description of a limited (but enor- touch the "that-ness...
...DIONHE, Jr...
...Sex, lies & accountability The fuss about the accuracy of the allegations continues apace, as the biography has been widely serialized...
...find a better school, doesn't a sense of socertainty available here, but it does not There are tens of thousands of parents, cial justice demand this parent be given a Commonweal 8 March 10, 2000 choice and a chance...
...in engineering, average what's happening to some of our poorest tended consequence of the booming starting pay is $42,862...
...The universe P the-other-guy's-face conflict the Democratic party's opposition to does not need to have a beginning in time that it's worth celebrating moments choice is an example of supporting a spefor the doctrine of creation to be true...
...cally, is not a matter for theology, and we last month, Tamala Edwards of Time In this debate the opposing sides rarely should not look to science for theological magazine noted the support among address the other's best arguments...
...form...
...But voucher advocates, their opponents say, are wrong to pretend that the K-12 education market is like every other market...
...The gap grows children, there's something wrong with economy: Rewards for new college over time...
...Of course, this cannot be proven...
...But new college grads field asked...
...That wound was opened only in the past couple of Public and media interest in this hitherto unexplored area years, but as yet it shows no sign of healing...
...At the sustaining-all of those things we be- put ourselves at the service of a story end of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, lieve God to do-are not, apparently, that begins with creation and ends with Wittgenstein wrote, "It is not how the God's ideas of the same things...
...It is true that there is a limited pulling them out of those public schools...
...Riley's innovation was to suggest cannot deny what market logic tells us: alternatives to schools in catastrophic that teaching be turned into a full-year, We need higher pay for teachers, especondition, vouchers may work as a and better-paid, profession...
...resurrection...
...Not un- olitical reporters are trashed disproportionately black and brown, less you want some scientific validation so regularly for loving who do not have that choice...
...What if it were to fall apart, and a E.J...
...When the public schools fail is out of the system...
...consolation...
...But they are no substitute for fix- math and science teachers...
...UnCharles McQuaid, archbishop of Dublin from derlying this despair-mixed, on occasion, with anger-is a 1940 to 1972, that this most powerful prelate in series of scandals involving physical and sexual abuse in twentieth-century Ireland was a pedophile, has church-run institutions which add up to a crisis of credibilpoured salt into an open wound in the Catholic church in Ire- ity in the institutional church...
...a computer systems analyst © 2000, Washington Post Writers Group an anonymous accusation (which, in effect, this is) has introduced a wide new seam of debate...
...Educa- bers: The average first-year teacher's urgent questions Edwards and Greention Secretary Richard Riley was right in salary is $25,735...
...An education But voucher opponents need better aning the public schools, and there is no department official offered these num- swers than they've come up with to the cheap or easy way to do that...
...ter education...
...good enough for your child...
...here she was interrupted poor parents can't afford private schools...
...Apologists for what amounts the point...
...In ten years, the child counted...
...We protect our kids' future by ents: If the parents of poor children can anything...
...in kind from scientific understanding, by applause, "why should the parents And as Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley and we should not be shy about pointing here have to keep their kids in public has said, even the most sincere promise out the inherent limitations of science...
...Vouchers are thus a false promise if they're offered as an alternative to public school reform...
...Starting new schools is difficult and expensive...
...to the religion of scientism (the late Carl our children," he said, referring to afflu- What might be called the guilty-conSagan, for example) like to say that it is ent parents, "we don't wait for new leg- science argument says to well-off parthe only way we have of really knowing islation...
...Neither Gore nor Bradley was about to without God there is nothing, that God In the midst of the acrimonious con- embrace vouchers...
...When theology looks of things hoped for, the conviction of found in the "still, small voice...
...We hope they are...
...we count on it...
...Yes, in some cities, there are alternative schools-usually Catholic schools-whose tuitions are within the reach of what a voucher could pay for...
...version of the universe as eternal, with no beginning in time, perhaps forever expanding, then imploding, then expand- VOUCHERS ing again (as Hindu cosmology would Let's have a real debate have it) were to gain ascendancy...
...But, as Greenfield said, Religious understanding is different And, if not...
Vol. 127 • March 2000 • No. 5
