Citizens for Educational Freedom

Celebrates Its 50th Anniversary

By Jim Day

Citizens for Educational Freedom (CEF), which began in 1959 in the living room of Martin and Mae Duggan’s home in north St. Louis as an organization to promote school choice, will celebrate its 50th Anniversary this year with a banquet on Tuesday evening, October 20. The banquet will be held at the Hilton Frontenac Hotel at Lindbergh and Clayton Roads in St. Louis County with a reception beginning at 6 p.m. and a dinner at 7 p.m.

The special guest speaker will be Joseph Bast, President and CEO of the Heartland Institute, which promotes free-market solutions to social and economic problems. Masters of ceremony for the event will be Charlie Brennan, host of the Charlie Brennan Show on KMOX radio and Wendy Wiese, veteran radio and television personality in the St. Louis area. Both are regular panelists on Donnybrook, the popular roundtable talk program on KETC (Channel 9).

Citizens for Educational Freedom promotes parent’s rights in education, advancing the belief that education funds - local, state or federal - should be used to allow parents to select the school of their choice, whether it be public, private or religious. The organization is nonpartisan and nonsectarian.

Starting with twelve members back in 1959, CEF grew nationwide and would be the forerunner of other school choice organizations. Over the years, CEF has been involved in numerous lobbying efforts, litigation and educating the public in order to pursue its goal of a “fair share” for all students. The organization’s slogan has been, “Give Parents a Choice, Give Children a Chance.”

The Duggans, who had four boys at the time, were motivated by the injustice of a proposed federal aid to education bill sponsored by the National Education Association. The bill counted all private and public school students in determining the amount of money to be spent, but shrewdly and unfairly left out private school students when it came to distributing the funds.

Fortunately, CEF was able to stop this discriminatory bill for six years until 1965 when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act passed which mandated equal distribution of funds to all school children, both public and private.

The late Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1976, became an avid supporter of Martin and Mae as he was also an early proponent of school choice. He recognized CEF as the pioneer school choice organization.

‘School choice’ was pretty much an unknown concept 50 years ago but there are now different school choice programs throughout the United States. Vouchers and tuition tax credits are the most popular. Charter schools have also expanded. These schools are privately run but publicly funded and do not have all the regulations of other public schools.

In 2002, the school choice movement received a big boost when the United States Supreme Court ruled that vouchers are constitutional, thus allowing the Cleveland scholarship program to fund needy students who choose private schools.

Martin and Mae Duggan will be honored at the October 20th dinner for their years of service to CEF and their devotion to the school choice effort. It’s Mae’s hope that school choice will expand throughout the country. “The human spirit always yearns for freedom,” said Mae. “America has thrived on free enterprise, competition and freedom of expression and religion, yet none of these rights are allowed by a monopoly educational system. More school choice would greatly benefit the country.”

Martin Duggan had a 45-year newspaper career with the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. He was editor of the editorial page for many years before retiring in 1984. Since 1987 he has served as the host of Donnybrook on KETC (Channel 9) and will retire from the program in December of this year.

“Mae and Martin have long been the driving force behind CEF,” said Herman Krieghauser, chairman of the Educational Freedom Foundation and a longtime friend. “Their dedication and commitment inspired an entire movement.”

For more information about CEF’s 50th Anniversary celebration call (636) 686-7101 or visit their website at www.educational-freedom.org where you can also learn more about the subject of school choice.