Private School Voucher Plan Ignites Debate : Education: Opponents fear the initiative could cost county campuses $25 million. But backers say students will benefit.

A proposed ballot initiative that would allow parents to use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools would take away at least $25 million from financially squeezed Ventura County public schools, according to county officials.

If the initiative qualifies for the statewide November ballot and is approved by voters, parents would be free to choose any private school for their children. Those opting for private schools would receive an annual $2,500 voucher, half of the $5,000 the state now spends on public education per student. The money for those vouchers would have to come out of the state’s education budget.

Even if no additional students transfer to private schools, county officials say the vouchers for students already enrolled in private schools would devastate public school budgets. They expect an initial drain of $25 million for the county’s 10,000 students in parochial or other private schools.

With only a few days left for voucher supporters to collect the required 615,958 signatures to make the ballot, the debate over the benefits and drawbacks of the initiative grows more heated.

Supporters, including President Bush, say the voucher system will improve the overall quality of education by creating competition between public and private schools.

Opponents argue that it would cause middle- and upper middle-class families to abandon public schools and, in effect, create a two-tiered educational system--one for the haves and one for the have-nots.

“It will definitely harm the public education system,” said James F. Cowan, Ventura County’s superintendent of schools. “Even if no one leaves public schools, it will have a big impact.”

Cowan said it would cost the state about $1.4 billion to subsidize the 531,000 students already enrolled in private schools, with $25 million underwriting the 10,000 or so private school students in Ventura County.

“I don’t see how taking money out of the public education system is going to improve it,” he said.

But leaders of the Excellence Through Choice in Education League (ExCEL), the measure’s sponsoring organization, say opponents have exaggerated the fiscal impact on public schools.

At least 100,000 students, including about 700 in Ventura County, would not receive vouchers because they are in “home-teaching schools,” where parents teach their own children. These schools generally have fewer than 25 students, the minimum number that would be necessary to receive vouchers.

Kevin Teasley, vice chairman of Los Angeles-based ExCEL, said the state would actually hand over $750 million in vouchers to current private school students. Furthermore, he said, the initiative is worded in such a way that the state would not have to subsidize these students for two years.

Teasley said the voucher initiative will ultimately save the state money, because the state is only forfeiting half of the amount allocated per pupil. The remaining half, he said, will stay in the state’s general fund, with some portion earmarked for education.

Cowan disputed this, predicting instead that the money will be kept by the Legislature each year to balance the budget.

“They don’t have the money now to balance the budget,” he said. “If they have money coming back, they will have plenty of other places to put it.”

Cowan said the county’s 21 school districts are already financially strapped because of limited funding and the increasing demands of a growing school population, which now stands at 110,187. For years, he said, teachers have had to make do with small or no pay raises. Often, teachers purchase school supplies with their own money.

If public funds are diverted to private schools, Cowan said it would simply mean more across-the-board cuts would have to be made.

Teasley said money does not always bring quality public education.

“For too long we’ve heard from the educational Establishment and the politicians, ‘Just give us more time and more money,’ ” Teasley said. “The fact is, the system is worse now than it was five or 10 years ago. We need competition between schools.”

Doug Crosse, a Simi Valley school board member, said during a recent debate on the proposed initiative that he understands the frustrations of parents over the financial and academic problems in public schools. But he disagrees that a voucher system is the answer.

“I do believe that fair competition can make a small improvement in the educational system,” said Crosse, whose school district is the largest in the county with 18,000 students. “But the competition must be fair in order to be good. We must have a level playing field for competition to work.”

Crosse said the voucher system is not fair because it would allow tax-supported private schools to keep discriminatory admission policies. He said private schools will continue to choose students based on their religion, academic ability, mental and physical disabilities and English proficiency.

“The initiative will create a dual-track, elitist educational system,” Crosse said. “It will truly benefit the wealthy. It will not benefit the poor.”

Cowan agreed, saying 18% of the county’s public school students have limited English speaking skills and another 10% have learning disabilities. He said private schools would not be obligated to accept these children.

“There will be no new regulations imposed on private schools,” Cowan said. “Private schools can still be selective. We have no choice but to take everybody that comes to our door.”

Crosse said the original draft of the initiative would have required that 15% of a private school’s student population come from low-income families. But he said that provision was deleted at the insistence of one of the measure’s strongest supporters, the Assn. of Christian Schools International.

“That frankly smacks of a quota system,” said Burt Carney, a spokesman for the association, which offers legal advice to private schools and their teachers. “We didn’t feel supportive of an initiative that would gut administrative standards.

“We can’t see how private schools which have established certain criteria would allow children who don’t meet those criteria. That undermines the original purpose of the school.”

Robert Plunkett, a Simi Valley lawyer who heads the Ventura County chapter of Parents for Educational Choice, said, “As long as the same amount of money is allocated to everybody, there is no discrimination.

“The question is choice. If government money is going to go to education, the use of it should be put in the hands of the parents, not the bureaucrats. As long as you have a monopoly on the education system, you don’t have any motivation to improve.”

Plunkett also rejected the argument from school officials that only the wealthy will benefit. He said the $2,500 voucher will only cover part of a student’s tuition at a private school, with parents paying the balance. Plunkett said $2,500 would be more than enough to pay for tuition, and any money remaining could be put into a trust for the child’s future education.

A survey of a half-dozen private schools in Ventura County found that the average annual tuition is about $1,500 per student, but in most cases if a family has more than one child attending the school the tuition drops. There are 232 non-public schools in the county, about half of which are home-teaching schools. There are 179 public schools.

Officials at the private schools surveyed said their admission policies do not discriminate. But they said that because of limited space, equipment and teachers, they are forced to be selective about whom they admit.

For example, Santa Clara Elementary School, a Catholic school in Oxnard, does not have the money for bilingual education classes for students who don’t speak English or special education classes for students with learning disabilities.

“We tell people right out if we don’t have a special program, that maybe a public school is a better way to go,” Principal Dotty Massa said. “They have so much available to them.”

Massa said she supports the voucher initiative because it would mean that her school, with 350 students, could use more of the subsidies it receives from the church to build science and computer labs. Annual tuition is $1,225 per student.

Massa said she believes private schools generally provide better education than public schools because there is more parent involvement.

“When you have to pay for the school, you do tend to get involved and there is more of a family type atmosphere,” she said.

Norma Foster, principal of Hueneme Christian School in Port Hueneme, agreed.

“I have many teachers of the public school system who have their children in our school,” said Foster, a principal for 21 years.

Like Santa Clara Elementary, Hueneme Christian School does not offer bilingual classes or special education classes because it cannot afford them. Annual tuition is $1,700 or $1,800 per student, depending on the grade level.

Foster said the school has 380 students and is equipped to handle only about 15 more. She said the school does not discriminate based on religion or other factors, but Christian students or those who have family members in the school get priority for the limited classroom seats.

Not all private school administrators favor the voucher initiative.

Michael D. Hermes, president of the prestigious Ojai Valley School, a private boarding school, believes the voucher system will fail because there are not enough private schools to handle all the students who might want to transfer.

“Most private schools are full,” he said. “So where are all these parents going to go that have vouchers? They are going to run right into a brick wall.”

Hermes said his school’s current student enrollment is 280, and that it can only handle about 20 more. Tuition ranges from $6,000 a year for day students to $18,000 a year for those with room and board.

Hermes said private schools can offer far more beneficial student-to-teacher ratios. He said Ojai Valley classes range from 12 to 18 students, while the average classroom size in public schools is 34 students.

“I’ve never thought our teachers are better than public school teachers,” Hermes said. “I think public school teachers should be given a Congressional Medal of Honor for the job they do. Why they haven’t collapsed under the weight of classroom size is beyond me.”

Only two school board members in Ventura County support the voucher initiative--Jack Fowler of the Oxnard Elementary School District and Wendy Larner, a member of the Ventura County Board of Education.

“Whoever does the better job of educating kids should get the students and the money,” Fowler said. “We used to refer to it as a free-market economy. At least put it on the ballot so the public can choose.”

Larner said she supports the initiative because too much taxpayer money is being wasted on education bureaucracy and regulations, including busing students to desegregate schools.

“I’m not for the destruction of public schools,” Larner said. “I am for the restoration of quality in education. I believe competition is the catalyst for reform.”

Most members on the Ventura County Republican Central Committee have endorsed the voucher initiative. A group of conservative Christians took control of the central committee last year.

State Senate Education Committee Chairman Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) said he adamantly opposes the voucher initiative because “it would have a devastating effect on the funding of public schools.”

He has proposed an alternative in legislation that would create “charter schools” within the public school system. In each school district, teachers would be able to create and govern their own schools and parents would be able to send their children to a charter school of their choice, no matter where they live.

“It tries to deal with the concerns of the disaffected public with the current school system,” Hart said.

But voucher supporters do not believe Hart’s bill will pass, or that it would make much difference if it did. Even the California Teachers Assn. has voiced concerns about the effect Hart’s bill would have on collective bargaining and other issues.

And so voucher supporters push on with their campaign.

Teasley said ExCEL has spent about $600,000 to help collect signatures to place the voucher initiative on the ballot. Teasley would not disclose how many signatures have been collected. About 2,500 have been gathered in Ventura County, Plunkett said.

“We will have the required number of signatures,” Teasley said, and organizers plan to turn in signature lists within the next week.

FYI

The Parental Choice Initiative would allow parents to collect a $2,500 voucher from the state for each child sent to private school. Parents who teach their children at home would not qualify for the vouchers. Only those who enroll their children in parochial or other private schools with at least 25 students would qualify. Supporters say the initiative will improve education for all students by creating competition between private and public schools. Opponents say it would devastate the public school system by draining $1.4 billion from the state public education budget.