House Approves School Vouchers for Families in D.C.

In what is intended as an important test case for school vouchers, the House voted Thursday to provide $7 million in federal funds to help 2,000 District of Columbia families pay tuition at the public or private schools of their choice.

By a vote of 203 to 202--an unexpectedly narrow margin--Republican leaders overcame determined Democratic opposition and a White House veto threat to win passage of a District of Columbia spending bill that contains the voucher program.

The voucher experiment, a key element of the GOP’s national education reform package, would offer poor, inner-city schoolchildren “scholarships” of as much as $3,200 each to cover tuition costs at nearby parochial, private or public schools.

The surprisingly close vote suggests a difficult journey for the GOP voucher proposal. A conference committee must reconcile the House measure with a Senate bill that does not contain a voucher program. In addition, the White House has notified House leaders that senior administration officials will urge President Clinton to veto the bill if it reaches his desk with the voucher proposal.

“Establishing a private-school voucher system in the nation’s capital would set a dangerous precedent for using federal taxpayer funds for schools that are not accountable to the public,” the White House said in its critique of the House bill.

While much of the House discussion focused on the state of the District of Columbia’s schools--noted for their leaky roofs, poorly trained teachers and scant classroom supplies--it is emblematic of a broader debate over how best to empower parents and improve America’s schools.

Under the voucher proposal, Congress would provide funds to help 2,000 low-income D.C. students attend public or private schools in Washington or its Virginia or Maryland suburban school districts. It also would provide $500 grants to 2,000 public school students to pay for tutoring services.

Other provisions in the House legislation would require the district to lower taxes by $200 million and to retire more than $300 million in short-term debt in exchange for $825 million in federal taxpayer support. It also would require the D.C. government to reopen Pennsylvania Avenue in front the White House. It was closed--over the objections of city and business leaders--to vehicular traffic in 1995 to increase security at the White House.

The voucher proposal is the measure’s most controversial element. GOP supporters said the plan would test the proposition that public education will improve if parents are given more choices about where to send their kids to school. Noting that affluent parents are able to opt out of the public school system, supporters portrayed vouchers as able to give low-income parents the same choices.

Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) said that it would be hypocritical of Clinton to threaten to veto the voucher plan because he sent his daughter, Chelsea, now a first-year student at Stanford University, to Washington’s exclusive Sidwell Friends School.

“If the president can live in public housing and send his kid to private school, why shouldn’t someone else living in the inner city who lives in public housing get to choose to send their kids to private school?” Watts asked.

That theme was echoed by Rep. James M. Talent (R-Mo.), who said none of the senators living in Washington with school-age children is sending them to public schools in the District of Columbia.

“Stand with the parents and the kids on this issue,” Talent said. “Do for the kids what you would do for yourself.”

Democrats countered that the voucher proposal is a smoke screen to divert federal dollars to private and church-based schools, while denying public schools desperately needed taxpayer support.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) called the proposal a “radical plan” by Republicans harboring “a hidden agenda to destroy public schools in the District of Columbia.”

If Republicans want to help poor, inner-city students, Lewis said, they should devote more resources to public schools. “The schools need and deserve our support,” he said. “We should be working together to save our public schools . . . not selling them down the river.”