John Coons (8/23/29) is an American law professor and influential advocate for parental choice in K–12 education. Since the late 1960s he has written extensively about the potential for private school vouchers and various other forms of school choice to empower low-income parents.
Some education observers describe Coons as “voucher left” to distinguish his views from the choice movement’s conservative and libertarian wings. His best-known work is “Education by Choice: The Case for Family Control,” published in 1978 and co-authored with the late Stephen D. Sugarman, a fellow member of the law faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. The foreword was written by pioneering education authority James Coleman.
Coons’ support for parental choice evolved from early 1960s research and legal efforts to promote more just and efficient funding between wealthy and poor public school districts, including the successful design of (and argument for) a monumental California court case, Serrano v. Priest. Coons believes that giving lower-income parents more power to choose schools, including private schools using state funding, is another way to pursue equity in a “public” education system that has strongly favored the wealthy. His work has been animated by the plight of low-income parents who have few viable educational options beyond assigned district schools. Coons says that our so called “public” schools treat the poor “like feckless boobs who are incapable of making intelligent choices in the marketplace.” The fact is that they’ve never been allowed to do so. They’ve been treated as if they had no brains or discretion. I’m not so ready to give up on ordinary people as are many of these critics. If we free parents to make and correct their own mistakes, might they not learn to choose?”
Coons’ emphasis on equity and personal empowerment as primary rationales for universal choice, and his advocacy for a moderately regulated choice system was and remains at odds with the views of the late Milton Friedman, who is regarded as the father of school choice and stressed an even more free market approach. Coons and Friedman knew each other well; their competing visions clashed during ill-fated attempts by both in the late 1970s to put proposals for statewide school choice on the ballot in California.
A primary conflict between their proposed designs for choice: Should the subsidy be equal in dollars for all parents regardless of their wealth? Friedman, yes; Coons, no. The dollars should be scaled by need, unless professional research clearly shows the political prudence of including those already independent by their wealth. In any case, the subsidy should be scaled down in size according to the wealth of the family.
Coons received his bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, in 1950, and his law degree in 1953 from Northwestern University where he taught from 1956-1967. He joined the Berkeley law faculty in 1967, and is the Robert L. Bridges Professor of Law, emeritus.
His most recent books are:
1. School Choice and Human Good, Balboa Press, 2022
2. The Case for Parental Choice, University of Notre Dame Press, 2023
In 2023 Coons received the Annual Scholarship Award for service to Religious Freedom given at the London meeting of the Notre Dame University sponsor.
Education
B.A., University of Minnesota, Duluth (1950)
J.D., Northwestern University (1953)