New School Voucher Laws Face Backlash

Cindra Barnard loves her district's public schools. That's why she's fighting the school board.

Barnard is a resident of Douglas County, Colo., where her daughter graduated from high school this year. Her son, Mason, is a rising senior at Highlands Ranch High School. Last year, Mason's school offered two Advanced Placement chemistry courses. Next year, it will only offer one.

Barnard suspects the limited AP offerings are because of a new voucher program in the high-performing, well-off Douglas County that allows students from all public school-enrolled families -- chosen via a lottery -- to attend private schools using public money.

Arguments for voucher programs stress that they don’t suck resources from public schools since the public money allocated for educating each child follows that child to private schools. But Barnard says classrooms work on economies of scale -- removing one child from a public school classroom merely siphons off resources for that school.

"Your costs do not go down," she said. "What goes down is revenue. You're hurting the remaining students."

So when Barnard, who is president of the local group Taxpayers for Public Education, saw her school board moving closer to unanimously voting for the 500-student pilot program in March -- and earning accolades from former Washington, D.C., schools chief Michelle Rhee -- she felt she had to take action.

She started by writing letters and contacting her local representatives. On Tuesday, she joined the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups in filing suit against her local school board and the state board of education, seeking to halt the voucher program. The complaint she filed on her own and her son's behalf sums up her worries:

As Colorado taxpayers, Plaintiffs will suffer injury from the Voucher Program because it expends taxpayer funds in violation of the Colorado Constitution and Colorado statutory law. As residents and taxpayers within Douglas County and the Douglas County School District, Ms. Barnard, as well as her minor child, will suffer injury because of the loss of control over the education they are required to fund.

Douglas County officials ignored the suit, moving ahead with a lottery this week to fill the last slots in the program.

A groundswell of backlash and legal action, from Colorado to Wisconsin, is following the flurry of laws passed this legislative session that created or expanded programs that allow parents to use public tax dollars for private -- and, often, religious -- schools.

By the count of Robert Enlow, CEO of the Friedman Foundation For Educational Choice, five states, including Indiana and Oklahoma, passed new voucher-school programs this legislative session, and seven states, including Florida and Wisconsin, passed or are expected to pass laws that expand existing programs. Washington, D.C.. had its controversial voucher program reauthorized during the lead-up to what almost became a government shutdown.

Similar laws could be on the horizon in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio. Douglas County will have Colorado's first voucher program.

"I think what we're seeing with vouchers is really just part of the greater urgency we're seeing around education reforms in general -- across the country, parents, community members, school leaders, public officials -- they're all demanding change," Rhee said in an email statement to The Huffington Post.

THE VOUCHER STORY

The question of vouchers, or of any program that allows public money to fund private or religious schools, touches on the separation of church and state and well as the issue of school choice.

Charter-school and voucher advocates claim the right of school choice -- the ability of a parent to choose a school based not on geography, but on fit -- as key to their cause.

But the issues of vouchers cleaves the movement. The Obama administration, a champion of charter schools -- which are publicly funded but can be privately run -- has not publicly supported voucher programs. But some Republican governors have.

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Comments

[fdrrules]

10:37 AM on 06/29/2011

Thomas jefferson always looked on public schools as a unifying factor in America to educate people and teach them a respect for this country.Private voucher schools have an agenda and its not education,they pull this nation further apart.I agree with the authors statement that voucher schools destroy public schools because they pull funds away from the schools with funding being based on a set amount per pupil.My old superintendent use to say it cost the same to educate 20 pupils as it does 30 but you get less funding.The billionaire DeVos family who created the demand for voucher schools realizes this is one way to destroy public education.Another is hugh tax breaks for the corporations so states have less money to give for education.The public schools do an excellent job of educating people except in large city areas where its not bad teachers as Republican propaganda has you believe that causes bad education but poor economics where children know they will never have a chance for college,lack of jobs for minorities causing despair and bad parenting because both parents work or a single parent works and they don't have time for a child who picks up on this and says whats the use of an education when i can't get hired.It is this despair that causes failure to learn.It takes only 5 or 6 children in a classroom with this attitude to destroy everyones education.The republican goal destroy public schools

[sharonsj]

07:06 PM on 06/28/2011

Gee, I thought the matter of "separate but equal" had already been decided. Meanwhile, it's not just taxpayer money being siphoned off to private schools, it's that taxpayer money is funding RELIGIOUS schools. Conservatives are always screaming about the Constitution but never follow it.

[jteschke]

03:38 PM on 06/28/2011

When organized ignorance, i.e, the religious right, takes over education, you will end up with organized ignorance. Decline is the inevitable outcome.

[SirOgle]

03:56 PM on 06/27/2011

Private schools have the luxury of rejecting under-performing, ill-mannered, and special needs students back to the public school system. These students cost more. They skew test scores. They require specialized teachers. They require specialized equipment and training aids.I don't see how how private schools can claim public funds while they fall so short of achieving the public school mission.

It's like the difference between a hospital ER and a doctor's office. The doctor takes the easy routine stuff, sore throats, colds, rashes, etc.. The ER takes all of that plus, accidents, gunshots, grave illnesses, etc.. No one is going to say that it costs just as much to run the doctor's office. That may be overstating it a bit, but the idea is the same.

[JonAwbrey]

11:18 PM on 06/26/2011

People need to understand that State and Federal Treasuries are not personal savings banks. Your tax dollars are not deposits you make to the Treasury so you can draw them out again when you need to patch a pothole on your street, or pay for the kinds of plays that public schools in my millennium were legally obligated to provide for free.

Unless governments use tax dollars to “Promote The General Welfare” well in advance of each individual's need, there is no public street anywhere to patch any potholes in, and there is no public school anywhere to pay for any plays in.

[Knowitall]

05:39 PM on 06/26/2011

Republicans resent paying taxes that go to public schools, because they want to send their children to private and religious schools. By PRETENDING that they are concerned about minority children getting good educations, they think they can gradually get vouchers offered to EVERYBODY who wants to attend a private school. They will do this much like they did with the Bakki decision back in the 70s. At some point they will claim that it is "reverse discrimination" not to offer vouchers to everybody.

Mark my words. They have been pushing this concept in Washington, D.C. for years. They wanted DC to be the "test" case. That's one of the reasons Michelle Rhee was there. Michelle Rhee is a Republican. That's why she is no longer in DC.

[SupportPublicEd]

12:14 PM on 06/26/2011

The mantra of Rhee and her ilk seems to be that vouchers 1. provide parent choice, and 2. save money. Can someone please tell me how parent choice and saving money lead to a better education and for that matter a better system of public education?

This is not education reform.

[JonAwbrey]

01:46 PM on 06/26/2011

A former teacher explained it to me this way:

“Vouchers act as an escape valve for politicians because they take the pressure off elected officials to actually fund and improve public schools. Instead they allow a lottery-like system that makes everyone in poor school districts think that they will have the opportunity to send their children to better schools — which is not the case since the better schools will not take all of the children from poorer school districts.”

[Insanity rules]

11:35 AM on 06/27/2011

I think that is partly true of the situation - the other aspect is a smaller system can change easier. It is frustrating to see the public schools "maintain" and not be innovative but in many cases it's the "system" that causes the problems. That said no tax money for private education should used.

[ILoveGreatDanes]

10:46 AM on 06/26/2011

Using tax dollars to fund religious schools through this voucher program is wrong. I must be delusional, because I thought there was such a thing as separation of church and state. Apparently not.

[lipps]

03:49 PM on 06/26/2011

Has nothing to do with separation because it isnt the state making the decision to fund the private or religeous school; it is the individual.

[JonAwbrey]

05:06 PM on 06/26/2011

No group, numbering 1 or many, can vote to support an establishment of religion with public dollars.

[SteveDenver]

03:25 AM on 06/26/2011

It's insidious how those in favor of vouchers are willing to hand them out for use in ANY "school." If schools receive tax-funded vouchers, they must be open to examination, welcoming of any students and qualified teachers, and must be accredited.

[JonAwbrey]

01:34 PM on 06/26/2011

Q. And what will they become if they do all that?

A. They will become public schools.

[leskataus]

08:52 PM on 06/26/2011

That's why most private schools don't want to participate in the voucher plan. By accepting public money, they are being turned into public schools. That means they will have to accept students they normally would turn away and they will have to make certain accommodations that they would rather not have to make such as single sex schools having to accept members of the opposite sex, for example.

[sugarcreekchile]

07:59 PM on 06/25/2011

People who care about their children's education don't want them going to lousy schools. My oldest in the '70s, due to redistricting, would have been in a rough grade school. I sent him to a private Catholic grade school even though non-Catholic. When we moved into a home in a nicer neighborhood noted for its good schools, he went to the public schools. We'd moved to another state when my 2nd child started school in the '90's living in a nice area of the city where the schools were good, so he went to public school.

I can see the reason for the opposition to vouchers .By putting a child in a private school, the school district loses money to begin with for that child because he's not part of their head count and vouchers take actual money that the schools have to operate on and gives it to the parents. I can see having a means test for vouchers as more affluent parents don't need them as they can afford to pay for a private education. Without vouchers, it is the poorer parents desiring a better life for their kids whose children get stuck in mediocre public schools which basically denies them the right to get ahead and keeps them in their place.

[JonAwbrey]

10:12 PM on 06/25/2011

If all people are born equal, and all people have equal rights under the law, and education is not only a right but a duty in a democratic society, why should some schools be better than others, if the main thing it takes to make them equal is equal funding and equal protection under the law?

[JonAwbrey]

06:40 PM on 06/25/2011

There are some things about vouchers that I used to think were obvious to everyone, but now I see they are not, and I think that may account for the fact so many people of good will are taking past each other in this discussion.

First of all, those of us who spent the last twentieth of the second millennium criticizing “establishment” and “status quo” ways of doing just about everything, including education, have always been open to diversification and experimentation in our schools, so long as those alternative schools do not put developing characters and our democratic way of life at more risk than people of good will would dare to venture. Many of us have long criticized models of funding based on property taxes and more lately lotteries, and we know that many other funding models could lead to higher quality education being both more versatile and more widely distributed. But we recognize that the current “status quo” got established largely on account of the natural desire of local communities to control the quality of education in their areas. As a consequence, local school boards have to be jealous of the funds they are given to do what their communities demand of them. If we want to change the consequences, we have to change the antecedents. Vouchers do not do that. They merely undermine the ability of school boards to do what we demand of them.

All I have room for in this post. More later ...

[fanetiks]

05:53 PM on 06/25/2011

Why no dollar figures as to the amount of the voucher, the costs (tuition, books, in-class materials, meals, transportation, etc.) of private schools, and who makes up any difference? If a public school gets $10,000 per student, but a private school costs $30,000, does the parent make up the $20,000 difference? If so, we are stealing from the public schools to make it less expensive for the rich to segregate their kids from the poor. Or does the voucher pay $30,000 to send one kid to private school, and thus steal funding for 3 kids in the public schools? This is a HUGELY important matter that was not even DISCUSSED. Indeed, I saw only ONE comment in the first several dozen that even remotely addressed this. There is also the issue of economic stratification and religious, racial, and social segregation of society, to destroy American social cohesion. Why NOT give vouchers for home schooling, with all the insane things taught by home schoolers? The voucher movement is a power grab and a money grab by the rich, racists, and religious fanatics against society. How could the Supreme Court rule that it is fine to send public money to religious schools? The Constitution was written in plain language so people could understand what is and is not permitted, but the Supreme Court ignores that plain wording. We are moving to a FRACTURED, and mutually suspicious group of subsocieties. They, in turn are moving toward mutual civil war.

[lipps]

03:51 PM on 06/26/2011

How do you know what is taught by home schoolers?

[fanetiks]

02:06 AM on 06/29/2011

Home schoolers are, in general -- except in isolated areas where there are no schools -- doing home schooling because of disagreements with the things taught in the public, and private, schools. Many home-schoolers teach things like creationism, which they couldn't force the public schools to teach. Altho educational authorities require that certain things be taught, they do not control the disapprove things taught.

[hellnomo]

05:21 PM on 06/25/2011

What is being ignored here is that the "public money" comes from the parents who want their child educated in a private school. The plaintiff is just a tool for the teachers union to keep funding for public education under their control. Why should parents have to pay twice to have their child in a private school? Union thuggery all the way.

[Kevin Schmidt]

06:01 PM on 06/25/2011

In reality, we have Gilded Fascist Elite thuggery all the way.

Obviously you either did not read the article, or you have a severe comprehension problem.

Please provide the proof of teachers "union thuggery" and proof the plaintiff is "just a tool for the teachers union."

Private education is an option and a privilege, not a right. No where in the Constitution is there a right to private education.

[hellnomo]

11:30 PM on 06/25/2011

Well I do believe in the United States private education is still a legal option to union thuggery. You show me where it is said public education trumps free choice?

[JonAwbrey]

01:20 PM on 06/26/2011

Public money comes from the public, which is a much bigger population than parents, and a far bigger population than people with school-age children at the time the taxes are collected. Governments derive their right to collect taxes from that larger public solely on the condition that those funds support the good of that larger public.

Some people these days appear to be having trouble with the very concept of the public good. Let us pray they don't learn it the hard way. Let us say, one day when they crash their car on a rural county road, and the inner city kid who wanted to become a doctor and might have been encouraged by a Federal grant to begin her practice in an under-served region is not there to save their lives. But let us pray they go their reward of the non-monetary kind feeling blessed in the knowledge that their daughter the doctor is enjoying her holiday in St. Moritz.

Let us pray …

[Trish Ledoux]

02:24 PM on 08/17/2011

Flawed premise only in that these people struggling with the concept of "the public good" would be unlikely to be on that rural, county-maintained road, their own "good" being no doubt located in a far more affluent zipcode.

[ch punk]

03:06 PM on 06/25/2011

My sister once walked into class, and saw a Christian Cross in the room. She was so scarred by the the Christan image that she won't even talk anymore. So thank you ACLU for making sure church and stat are separate before we actually try to fix public education. It's Jesus fault that our kids can't learn, not lazy teachers, or political agendas. I see the light, and it's Unions.

[tedu56]

03:17 PM on 06/25/2011

sound like it to me she needs help get scared of a cross sounds to me you need to teach her about god

[mabraun52]

03:46 PM on 06/25/2011

I really think your sister has something inside that needs to be taken care of. I know it is so easy to blame Jesus. He has no blame for our public school are horrible. I don't see it.

[daughterusmc]

03:40 PM on 06/25/2011

is she a vampire?

[big10fb]

02:15 PM on 06/25/2011

Why can't we get G0vt AND Uni0ns OUT of Education and fix the problem at hand rather than force parents to run elsewhere all the while demanding their tax dollars to follow vouchers?

Think about it, if all those responsible were held accountable to teach our children, resulting in exemplary, educated citizens; parents wouldn't have the need to demand vouchers.

Just like healthcare, education requires major overhaul.

GET G0VT OUT OF HEALTHCARE AND EDUCATION. (libertarians rule)

[LeftRight]

05:02 PM on 06/25/2011

The unions are doing nothing but actually make education better.

And if you REALLY want to be in a libertarian paradise move to Somalia!

[hellnomo]

05:24 PM on 06/25/2011

How exactly does a union improve education?

[brokerallen]

10:31 PM on 06/25/2011

Unions keep really bad teachers employed. Overall they hurt education.