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As the movement for full school choice continues to make headway, Utah may be about to become the first state providing vouchers to all of its students.  The usual counterarguments continue to be heard: separation of church and state, harm to the public schools, the dangers of for-profit school managers, etc.  A large-scale voucher program long ago gave evidence that countered these arguments.  It was the GI Bill.

Actually there have been five GI Bills: 1944, 1952, 1966, 1976 and 1984.  All have been successful but the 1944 bill was the most important.  It was not only first, and worked so well prior to its expiration in 1956, that it justified the subsequent versions, but so many served in World War II that the first bill involved the most veterans.

If the 1944 measure is often thought of as the best education idea and program this nation ever produced, which is true.  A decade ago then-National Education Association (NEA) President Keith Geiger said it was "one of the wisest investments the United States had ever made."  Beyond that the law is recalled as a means to assist veterans seeking a college education, which is only partially true.

What is forgotten is the low level of educational attainment by WW II troops. In his praise of the bill, Geiger noted that one of every six veterans had less than a fourth-grade education, one in three had less then an eighth grade one, and 60% had not graduated from high school.

As a result, while some two million veterans used the bill's tax provided benefits to attend college three times as many used it for other purposes, including completing their high school education.  Among these were veterans who earned a diploma from Catholic schools.

Even among those who pursued higher education, in 1945 80% of college students attended private institutions, and veterans were no exception.  They not only attended 481 nonsectarian institutions but also 744 with religious affiliation - 474 Protestant, 265 Catholic, and 5 Jewish.  Veterans religious affiliations often did not match those of the schools they attended.   Not only that, at least 36,000 of them majored in religion and became members of the clergy.

So much for separation of church and state.

Today 80% of college students attend public institutions. So much for aid to students attending private schools harming the public schools.

The program demonstrated what should be obvious: good schools, whether public or private, secular or sectarian, concentrate on educating not preaching.

More veterans pursued opportunities offered by provisions that paid for remedial, vocational, and technical education than did those who attended college.  Millions pursued instruction in sheet metal, tool and die, steam fitting, auto mechanics, tire retreading, and even tap dancing.  Here I speak from personal experience.  Although subsequently obtaining undergraduate and graduate degrees from a college and university respectively, as a former Air Force radio operator, I first used my WWII GI benefits to attend a private, for-profit proprietary technical school in Boston to qualify for a Federal Communication Commission license to be a radio and tv broadcast engineer.  The school was a good one, the license was obtained and it contributed to nearly 20-years as a radio and television broadcaster which, in turn, helped make possible the college and university education that led to a career as a public school teacher.

So much for the dangers of for-profit schools (as if $50,000+ teachers and six-figure administrators in public schools aren't profiting from the tax dollars funding their salaries).

Finally, it is estimated that 8 million veterans used the first GI Bill, not to mention the millions who used the later ones.  Where to go and what to study was up to the veteran.  Yet this huge program was administered by a relatively small bureau in the Veterans Administration in Washington. They verified the veteran's service and honorable discharge, acceptance and attendance at a recognized school or program, and gave a monthly stipend to the veteran.

So much for the fear that public dollars always mean government interference.

All students should have equal opportunities for an education of their choice.  As with the GI Bills, the nation will experience tremendous benefits.

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Although the WWII GI Bill passed both the House and Senate by unanimous votes, and was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in June 1944, "the president of the University of Chicago, Robert Maynard Hutchins, said of the G.I. Bill, ‘Colleges and universities will find themselves converted into hobo jungles" and James B. Conant, president of Harvard...found the bill ‘distressing' because it failed ‘to distinguish between those who can profit most by advanced education and those who cannot.'" p. 290, Josh Hammond & James Morrison, The Stuff Americans Are Made Of, NY: Macmillan, 1996    (Which, perhaps, only shows that even the best of educators are sometimes the last to recognize the value of a powerful idea for educational reform.  DWK)

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Copyright 2007 David W. Kirkpatrick
108 Highland Court,
Douglassville, Pennsylvania 19518-9240
Phone: (610) 689-0633