Backers, Foes of School Vouchers Focus on O.C. : Education: Both sides see the county as fertile ground and plan hard campaigns here for the November vote.

For Kathy Moran of Villa Park, a mother of four who has been active in the Orange Unified School District for a dozen years, the Parental Choice in Education Initiative is a last-ditch effort to save the public schools.

To Sheila Benecke of Laguna Niguel, president of the county’s Parent-Teacher Assn., the measure on the ballot this November threatens to destroy them.

Backers of the controversial initiative, which would give parents about $2,500 in state funds per child to spend on the private or public school of their choice, hope to sell their plan to conservative Orange County by arguing that parents deserve a range of options in educating their children, and that free-market competition is the only way to improve the public school system.

But opponents of the measure--including at least a dozen local school boards, hundreds of teachers and the county superintendent of schools himself--are confident that the success and popularity of Orange County’s public schools will lead residents to vote against the vouchers.

“Public schools are the foundation of our democracy,” Benecke said, worrying that the initiative would rob the financially strapped school system of more funds. “This basically attacks the very foundation of our guarantee of equality for all.”

Moran, who has a son at Catholic Servite High School and daughters in public elementary and junior high schools, countered, “The voucher is the only thing that’s going to get the public schools back on line. It’s the only way to make the public schools better; that’s the only reason I’m going to support it. . . .

“I truly think this is the only way for the public schools to survive,” Moran added.

The statewide balloting is expected to be in a sense a referendum on the state of public schools, and many believe dissatisfaction with the troubled Los Angeles Unified School District--where 15% of the potential voters live--will generate a significant number of votes for the vouchers.

But in Orange County, where most school districts are relatively free of the problems that plague Los Angeles Unified, both sides see fertile turf for their campaign and plan to lobby hard.

The parents of about 9% of the Orange County students in kindergarten through high school have opted to put their children in private schools, compared to 11.5% in Los Angeles County, according to the 1990 census. Statewide, about 9% of the students in those grades attend private schools.

Local businessmen such as banking mogul Howard Ahmanson, developer Buck Johns and Safi Qureshy, the ‘S’ in ASP Research, are key backers of the initiative campaign. About one third of the total contributors to the Choice in Education League (ExCel)--co-chaired by State Sen. Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove)--live in Orange County.

The Committee to Educate Against Vouchers, however, has hired an Irvine-based political consultant to run its campaign against the initiative, and the California Teachers Assn., which is expected to pour millions into the campaign and mobilize thousands of voters, is headed by an Anaheim teacher.

The county’s largely Republican legislative delegation is split on this issue.

State Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), a former schoolteacher, said she supports vouchers for the poorest students in the state, but that the initiative on the ballot is flawed because it would give government money to those who can already afford private school. Bergeson called choice and competition “very healthy,” but said those goals can be achieved within the public system through the so-called “charter schools” and increased involvement among parents on the neighborhood level.

Saying he was educated by “the greatest voucher system the world has ever seen,” the GI Bill after World War II, State Sen. Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) listed himself as an ardent supporter of the initiative. Ferguson said he is most concerned not about Orange County schools but about those in more urban areas.

“Those students, if they continue to drop out and continue not to learn, are going to prey on the students who do well. They’re going to ruin the quality of life for everybody,” Ferguson said. “We’re all in the same ship together. Just because there aren’t any holes at our end of the boat doesn’t mean we won’t sink with the rest of them.”

Backers of the initiative, which is framed as an amendment to the state Constitution, say choosing what sort of education children get is a basic right, and that vouchers would get parents more involved with the schools. They believe the threat of students leaving and taking funds with them would put pressure on public schools to improve their product, and promise that the voucher system would make private education more accessible to lower-income families.

Anti-voucher activists, though, argue that public money simply should not go to private schools, which are immune to state regulations on curriculum, teacher qualifications and things such as earthquake safety. Many worry that the vouchers contravene the Constitutional separation of church and state by feeding taxpayer dollars to parochial schools, and fear that the measure, if passed, will leave public schools with fewer resources and students who are the most difficult and most expensive to educate.

A Times poll last March found that 51% of Californians oppose vouchers, and 41% support them. Among parents, 49% support vouchers, according to the poll.

Because the initiative shares the ballot with a measure that would allow counties to increase the sales tax, experts expect conservative voters to turn out in droves, which could sway things in favor of the voucher plan.

In the two weeks since Gov. Pete Wilson announced that the voucher initiative would be on the November ballot rather than in June, 1994 as planned, both sides have been mobilizing their forces but have not yet come up with concrete campaign plans.

Politicians, educators and parents said in interviews that they would speak about the voucher issue every chance they got, hand out leaflets door-to-door, and wage advertising campaigns.

Local chapters of the Republican and Democratic parties have not yet taken stands on the issue, nor has the Catholic Diocese, which runs 36 elementary schools and six high schools serving about 18,000 Orange County students.

Supporting the initiative through donations to ExCel are dozens of small business owners and entrepreneurs who believe privatization helps streamline government services. Also contributing are numerous private school teachers, administrators and parents.

“The public school system is a monopoly, and when you break a monopoly you get a better product,” said Joy Anthony, 36, a free-lance writer and Ferguson aide who lives in Newport Beach. “It’s basically a matter of individual freedom.”

Glen Noreen, business manager of the Fairmont Private Schools, which have 1,050 students in three secular schools in Anaheim and Yorba Linda, said the vouchers would improve public schools by forcing them to focus on customer service.

“There is no accountability in the public schools, there’s no accountability to the customers,” Noreen said. “Private schools have to be responsible to their customers. If the customers are not satisfied, they take their child and go to another school.”

Also backing the initiative are parents like Roger Clouse, whose son is a sophomore at Claremont, a private school in Huntington Beach.

“It represents a tremendous cost savings to me if it passes, so I’m interested in it,” said Clouse, explaining that he and his wife pay Claremont’s $5,400 tuition with her salary as an instructional aide in a Westminster public school.

“I do not wish my tax money to go to the public education system, because as far as I’m concerned (that is) flushing it down the hole,” he said. “Go ahead and take my money and give it to my next-door neighbors so they can put their kids in private school. That to me is better than throwing it into the plow.”

The education Establishment, however, is solidly against the initiative.

Teachers, parents and school board members who are fighting against the voucher system say it will steal more than $1 billion from the public school system by giving money to the 530,000 Californians already in private school, though those students would not receive vouchers for several years.

They denounce the competition argument, saying that because private schools are free from government regulation, they can educate far more cheaply that public schools.

“Competition is fine if you’re competing on level ground,” said Karen Russell, a junior high school science teacher in Westminster who represents Orange County on the CTA board. “Public schools never have competed on a level ground, because private schools can still pick and choose who their students are. We would still be required to take every single student that the private schools didn’t want or had kicked out.”

Added Ed Woodson, an Anaheim teacher: “It’s not fair competition when one side has to follow the rules and the other side doesn’t.”

John Dean, county superintendent of schools, also said that the choice issue is less relevant in Orange County, where most districts provide parents with some limited choice among public schools. Dean also said vouchers are unfair because private schools are not accountable for how they spend their money.

“It’s masquerading as choice when it’s really public money for private education,” Dean said. “The voucher initiative allows for virtually anybody, without a degree or a credential or anything, to start a private school. You could open one in your garage.”

A key point in the arguments of both sides is how the voucher system will affect California’s poor.

Howard and Roberta Ahmanson, frequent donors to Republican and conservative causes, have already given ExCel $150,000 and said they would likely give $100,000 more and host a campaign event before November. They support vouchers, Roberta Ahmanson said, because “we would like to see poor kids get a chance, and we would like to see parents empowered to make decisions.”

But others, including Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove), say $2,500 would not provide poor students enough for transportation to private schools, or even for tuition and would thus create a two-tiered system based on wealth.

Two Sides to Voucher Issue

PRO

* Parents should be able to choose the public or private school at which their children will be educated.

* Vouchers will give poorer students the chance to attend private schools like richer children.

* Dropout rates, test scores and other indicators point to the failure of public schools.

* Competition will pressure public schools to do a better job.

* System will ultimately save government money, because vouchers will give students only about half of what is spent to educate them in public schools.

CON

* Private school administrators, not parents, will choose who goes to what school.

* Vouchers will only help middle-class students, because they will not cover poor children’s tuition to most private schools.

* Private schools lack accountability, because they are not subject to government regulations or reporting procedures, which makes competition between public and private schools unfair.

* Public money should not support private schools, particularly church-affiliated schools, because of the constitutional prohibition against helping establish a state religion.

* The system will merely rob public schools of funds by giving vouchers to students who already attend private schools.

Researched by JODI WILGOREN / Los Angeles Times