The 1973 Illinois case of People ex rel. Klinger v. Howlett, 305 N.E.2d 129, was triggered in the mid-sixties. Catholic schools were providing disadvantaged children with opportunities seldom available in urban public schools, according to much evidence, but were closing at an alarming rate because of inadequate financial support.

(Much research on Catholic schools, done by zealots grinding public school axes, is misleading. Among other things, it finds Catholic schools minimally more effective than public schools, if at all, by estimating how Catholic schools would perform if following public school policies. But it is the special policies of Catholic and other private schools, not angels dancing on the point of a needle, that enable them to work so well.)

In 1969 the Illinois legislature, concerned about dying Catholic schools and outrageously inadequate public schools for impoverished children, created the Elementary and Secondary Nonpublic Schools Study Commission (ESNSSC) and asked it to assemble evidence on the condition of all private (at that time called “nonpublic”) schools in the state, not just the Catholic group; to examine the constitutionality of different forms of aid to private schools and their patrons; and to suggest what the legislature should do.

ESNSSC appointed me as research coordinator (I was then associate professor at the University of Chicago). In December, 1970, I submitted a report of approximately 400 pages. It predicted (accurately) that many Catholic schools (not private schools in general) would close unless given direct or indirect tax support.

In February, 1971, attorneys led by Philip B. Kurland of the University of Chicago Law School filed a 125-page report with ESNSSC, titled Constitutionality of Aid to Illinois Nonpublic Schools.

ESNSSC then recommended three bills that the legislature soon passed. Complicated challenges and changes followed, involving the state auditor of public accounts, the governor, the legislature again, and the Illinois courts.

The trial court in the Klinger case discussed my testimony in more than 400 words, beginning with:

“The most impressive evidence was the testimony of Dr. Donald Erickson, a professor in the Department of Education at the University of Chicago. It would unduly prolong this opinion to recite Dr. Erickson’s qualifications, experience and published writings in the field of education and educational administration, especially in the area of inner-city schools, both public and non-public. It is in fact conceded that Dr. Erickson is one of the nation’s leading, if not foremost, experts in his field and has closely observed and studied the public and non-public schools of the City of Chicago for the past ten years.”

Perhaps the court was unduly impressed with my credentials, partly because it held the University of Chicago in high regard and partly because famed Attorney Don Rubin of Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago, who engaged me to testify, presented me to the court so persuasively. Rubin asked me to describe the schools many impoverished children were forced to attend. The court, apparently sobered, found two bills assisting private schools and their patrons constitutional, but declared, with explicit reluctance, that the third bill was unconstitutional under guidelines of the U. S. Supreme Court.

There is no point in unraveling more history of the three bills, especially since pertinent constitutional guidelines have changed since then. Considerable tax support of private schools now seems likely. The most valuable characteristics of private schools may be attenuated if that happens, unfortunately, partly because of public regulation that has followed public aid to private schools in many parts of the world.

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