E Pluribus Unum

Recently I wrote about what happens now that the Supreme Court has blown a gigantic hole in the wall of separation between church and state. As bad as that decision was, it's over. But I contend that the law of unintended consequences may yet influence the eventual outcome. For example, I think the decision may cause private schools that accept public money to become more, well, public. This idea seems to cause anguish and confusion on both the left and the right. My friends on the left accuse me of capitulating. They insist that we liberals need to keep fighting the original fight until we can bring another case before the Supreme Court and, this time, win. They cite Brown vs. the Board of Education; that ruling struck down the idea of "separate but equal" embodied in an earlier Supreme Court decision (Plessy vs. Ferguson). Problem is, it took over 50 years to reverse the earlier decision. We'd like to think that we could prevail in our lifetimes. Those on the right question whether liberals can co-opt the school choice movement at all. Dean Esmay believes that the Democrats would have to transform themselves completely:

[T]he Democrats could try once again to re-embrace free market competition. They could also give more than lip service to the values they so cynically espouse, stop pandering to the teacher unions' paranoia, and get behind School Choice. It would be nice to see. If they got on board the Social Security Choice bandwagon, so much the better... But to do all that, not only will they have to abandon that segment of the left that hates the free market, they'll also have to abandon the McKinney/Hillary conspiracy axis, the Berkeley-style uber-doves, and the anti-corporate, anti-globalization youth movement that they've been trying to woo.

Not sure I know of any mainstream Democrats that are wooing the "anti-globalization youth movement." These folks are notorious no-shows on Election Day. Same with the "uber-doves." The only constituency that the Dems would anger would be the teacher's unions. That would take some guts and leadership. But I believe it could be done. For example, did you know that private school teachers are often represented by unions? Wouldn't it be logical at some point to promote the further extension of the unions into private schools? I should point out here that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a lawyer. But I have been known to associate with large numbers of plaintiff's attorneys. I am also a parent and a teacher and a payer of taxes. I can connect the dots; I can do the math. I think that the next phase in the voucher movement will be to establish the rules and regulations that govern private institutions that receive public monies. If this includes opening up a front wherein teachers unions can battle for position in private schools, so be it. I also believe that there will be court cases testing the concept of acceptable community standards in private schools. After all, do you want your tax dollars being distributed (even indirectly) to a local madrassas? At worst, this concept is arguable. At best, winnable. You might think this outrageous; but stranger things have happened. The bottom line is this: when public funds are re-distributed (even indirectly) to private parties, more (not less) strings will be attached.