Education Secretary Urges Private School Tax Credits

ST. LOUIS — Education Secretary William J. Bennett said today that “feminists, fundamentalists and every other group” will never agree on how to run public schools, so the government should help make private schools more affordable.

Bennett, defending the Reagan Administration’s proposed tuition tax credits and vouchers, said “government monopoly in schooling” is incompatible with the right of parents to rear their children according to their own beliefs.

Bennett made the remarks in a speech to the annual convention of the National Catholic Educational Assn.

The secretary, himself a product of parochial schools in New York and Washington, said, “It is no longer possible for us to assume that neighbors will share the same vision of the truth just because they live on the same city block.”

“It is no longer conceivable that feminists, fundamentalists and every other group will somehow come to agree with each other on how to handle sex education or dress codes or whether to begin the day with a prayer,” he said.

“The whole point of being Americans is that we do not have to agree. Except for a few precious principles, there is no official orthodoxy in this country.”

Despite recent improvements, he said, a Gallup survey indicates that 50% of the public still gives the public schools a grade of C, D or F.

Some parents “realize their children are not learning enough,” the education secretary said. Others “discover that their children are unlearning in school the lessons they have learned at home, the beliefs and values nurtured within the family.

“All parents, regardless of income . . . should be able to choose environments that affirm their own best principles, schools where their own values will be extended instead of lost,” he said.