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CURRENT ISSUE: March 7,
2005
VOL. 43,
NO. 5Oakland,
CA
Bush budget would fund school vouchers
By Bruce Alpert
Religion News Service
WASHINGTON—Early in his first term, President
Bush proposed a plan to provide federally financed vouchers to give low-income
parents across the nation the option of sending their children to private
schools, including religious ones.
Faced with strong opposition from Democrats and teachers unions, Bush
settled for a $13 million pilot program limited to families in Washington,
D.C. That move seemed to sidetrack the issue as the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks, war in Iraq and political battles took center stage.
But in a little-noticed section of his 2006 budget proposal, Bush is resurrecting
his request for a nationwide $50 million “Choice Incentive Fund.”
The idea, aides said, is to give private groups across the United States
the chance to compete for federal money for programs that give parents
more educational choices.
“This is exactly the time to do this,” said Mike Petrilli,
associate assistant secretary of education. “The two big reform
ideas today are parental choice and accountability, and they work together.”
With opposition still strong, prospects for Bush’s proposal may
depend on the success of the pilot effort: Washington’s School Choice
Incentive Program, the nation’s first federally financed voucher
program. It will be some time before the congressionally mandated assessments
of Washington’s program are completed for the first 1,023 children
to get vouchers worth as much as $7,500 each.
Interviews with parents and school officials reveal positives as well
as potential problem areas. Some parents said that in the five months
since their children entered private schools using the vouchers, they
are reading better and, just as important, looking at school not as a
chore but as a productive and even enjoyable experience.
But federal officials were embarrassed when an anti-voucher group uncovered
internal Education Department e-mails discussing potential negative reaction
to the fact that 187 vouchers went to students already enrolled in private
schools.
People for the American Way, a voucher opponent, said one of the problems
with the Washington program is that the city’s top schools are still
out of reach for many poor families because the vouchers cover only a
portion of the tuition, or because of the stringent admission standards.
This, the group said in a report released this month, gives credence to
fear that vouchers will cherry-pick the best students from public schools.
By far the largest participant in the new voucher program is the Archdiocese
of Washington with its 24 schools. It has enrolled 600 voucher students,
60 percent of the voucher total.
“The perception that we just take the smart kids just isn’t
so,” said Mary Anne Stanton, executive director of the Center City
Consortium, which operates 13 of the archdiocesan schools. “Our
kids aren’t any smarter, but they are motivated and their parents
are motivated. And that is a blessing and an edge.”
Stanton said the other big concern expressed by voucher opponents is that
religious schools will proselytize, or discriminate against children who
don’t conform to the church’s religious beliefs. That’s
disproved, she said, by the 68 percent of the students at her 13 schools
who are non-Catholic.
She quoted Cardinal James Hickey, the retired archbishop of the Washington
Archdiocese, as saying, “We have schools because we are Catholic,
not because the youngsters are Catholic.”
President George W. Bush speaks at a Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
Leadership Conference at a Washington hotel March 1, 2005.
Photo: REUTERS/Jason Reed
