By Gretchen Keiser

The archdiocesan secretary for education, Father Richard Kieran, along with national spokesmen for Catholic education, has welcomed the "draft" proposal for tuition tax credits unveiled by President Ronald Reagan last week.

It has not been an easy position to be in as, by and large, the tuition tax credit proposal has been criticized in the press. In Atlanta, the Constitution ran a lead editorial opposing the credits on April 14 and an editorial cartoon April 19 lampooning the plan as favorable only to the rich. However, a WGST phone-in news poll conducted the day the plan was unveiled brought in some 2,000 calls, 52 percent in favor of the tax credits.

Father Kieran said that he believes the basic issue is of a fundamental right people have to choose the type of education their children will receive. While in most countries in the modern world such a choice is available by state support of public and private schools, the United States' educational system has developed with the state providing support only of public schools, he said. Canada, for example, has side-by-side public and Catholic schools systems, each receiving equal amounts of funding based upon the number of people served, Father Kieran said.

"If you accept that there is a fundamental right to freedom of choice in education, then people have to be in a position to exercise that right," he said. "If we simply can't afford to do it, in effect we don't have freedom of choice."

The draft plan proposed by President Reagan is seen by supporters as an attempt to make that choice possible for people who are at present paying taxes to support the public school system and then paying tuition to send their children to Catholic schools. As proposed it would provide for a tax credit per child of up to $100 in 1983, up to $300 in 1984 and up to $500 in 1985 to cover one-half of tuition paid for that child. The credit would apply only to elementary and secondary school tuition at private, non-profit schools which do not discriminate on the basis of race.

One of the common criticisms is that such tax credits, because they would aid parochial schools, are unconstitutional and violate separation of church and state. Father Kieran countered that the concept deserves to be enacted and tested in the courts for constitutionality. Part of the opposition, he believes, stems from an "innate suspicion" of such a concept, which is familiar in other countries, but foreign to Americans. There is very serious question, he said, that the concept of separation of church and state has gone far from what was intended to a real "separation of religion from society, actually inhibiting the exercise of people's choice."

One aspect of the proposal he expressed concern about was the lack of a "refundability" clause. Such a clause would have provided not just a tax credit for those families paying taxes, but a refund to families paying tuition whose incomes were so low that they were not required to pay taxes. "That was a very important clause, making the legislation fair across the board," Father Kieran said.

However, he expressed strong support for the proposal to "get the principle established, get the wedge in the door and address the whole question of real freedom of choice in education."

"We're struggling for a basic fundamental right of our people," he said.