Jackson Joins L.A. Protest Over School Voucher Plan

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, joined by educators and activists from throughout Los Angeles, said Thursday a proposal to funnel state tax dollars into vouchers for private and parochial schools is “a divisive scheme” that would promote unequal education for the rich and poor.

Jackson, in a news conference at the Los Angeles Hilton and Towers, said the initiative contained “bits of elitism, racism and classism,” and added that while parents should have the right to put their children in private schools, taxpayers should not be obligated to pay for it.

“Let’s focus on equal funding for children everywhere,” Jackson said. “We can do without private schools for the few, but we cannot do without public education for the many.”

The proposal to place a “parental choice” initiative on the California ballot in November would require the state to provide a $2,500 voucher for every school-age child wanting to transfer from public to private school. It would also allow groups of public school teachers, parents and administrators to use revenue from the vouchers to start “state scholarship schools,” which would be exempt from most public school regulations.

Backers of the initiative say it would improve ineffective public schools by forcing them to compete more directly with private schools, while giving parents a choice in their child’s schooling. But opponents say the vouchers would amount to a subsidy for the well-off, and would annually drain up to $1.5 billion from an already underfunded public education system.

“This initiative will siphon off money from nearly bankrupt schools and pour them into schools that will spring up like mini-malls all over the state,” said Theresa Montano, state president of the Assn. of Mexican-American Educators.

Other concerns are that the initiative allows the creation of schools that will not be bound by most of the regulations governing public schools, such as those setting teacher competence and safety standards, and that it does not require spaces to be set aside for low-income and handicapped youths.

David Barulich, a board member of the Excellence Through Choice-in-Education League, which is sponsoring the initiative, said the measure would not hurt public schools financially and would deny state scholarships to schools that teach hatred or discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, color or national origin. The campaign as of last week had collected 80,000 of the 620,000 signatures needed to qualify the initiative for the ballot, he added.