WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats have put conditions on future
federal financing for a small school voucher program here, and they are
urging the schools chancellor to prepare the public schools to
re-enroll, in fall 2010, some 1,700 students currently attending
private schools at taxpayer expense.
Republican lawmakers contend that the conditions that were quietly
inserted into a huge spending bill this week were an effort by
Democrats to kill the nation’s only federally financed voucher program.
Last year, a Congressionally mandated review of the program by
Department of Education researchers concluded that there were no
significant differences between the test scores of students who
received a voucher and those who applied but, not receiving one,
attended public schools instead.
Parents of students taking part said they believed that the private
schools their children attended were safer than public schools, the
study found. But the voucher students themselves rated their school
experiences no more highly than did children attending neighborhood
schools, the study found.
For decades, liberals and conservatives have made school vouchers a
policy battlefield. Many Republicans see them as a way to offer middle-
and low-income students the same chance at20a high-quality private
education as wealthy children have, and to give public schools some
free-market competition along the way. Many Democrats, and the
teachers’ unions that back them, say the voucher programs leech
taxpayer money from public schools, making it harder for them to serve
any children well.
Large voucher programs operate in cities like Cleveland and Milwaukee,
but unlike the program here, those are not federally financed.
The Obama administration is more supportive of charter schools than
voucher programs. Charter schools are publicly financed but
independently run, and offer another alternative to traditional public
schools.
A Republican-controlled Congress established the Opportunity
Scholarships program, for kindergarten through grade 12, in 2004. It
has provided scholarships of up to $7,500 annually to cover tuition,
fees and transportation expenses for each of about 1,700 poor children
to attend private school. Some 90 percent of the participating students
have been African-American, and an additional 9 percent Hispanic,
according to the Department of Education study.
An omnibus spending bill approved by the House this week said money for
the vouchers would “only be available upon enactment of reauthorization
of that program by Congress and the adoption of legislation by the
District of Columbia approving such re-authorization.”
An explanatory statement accompanying the bill said that money provided
for the program could be used only for students who are currently
enrolled, rather than new students, and that Washington’s schools
chancellor “should promptly take steps to minimize potential disruption
and ensure smooth transition for any students seeking enrollment in the
public school system” after the 2009-10 school year.
Representative Howard P. McKeon of California, the top Republican on
the education committee, called that language “a stealth provision to
eliminate the scholarship program,” because obtaining votes to preserve
it in both the Congress and the District of Columbia Council set “an
impossible standard with anti-school-choice voices firmly in control”
in Congress.
Greg Cork, president of the Washington Scholarship Fund, the nonprofit
group that administers the voucher program, said, “It would be
incorrect to say that the program is being killed, but it is possible
that it would not be reauthorized.”
Mr. Cork added, “That would be a huge shame, because the program has
fundamentally changed children’s lives for the better.”
Michelle A. Rhee, the schools chancellor, said she did not share the
negative view of vouchers held by many big-city superintendents.
“Part of my job is to make sure that all kids get a great education,
and it doesn’t matter whether that’s in charter, parochial or public
schools,” Ms. Rhee said
.. “I don’t think vouchers are going to solve all
the ills of public education, but parents who are zoned to schools that
are failing kids should have options to do better by their kids.”
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