Private Voucher Program Offers 3,750 L.A. Scholarships

A privately financed program aimed at promoting educational choice and helping poor city children attend private schools began accepting applications Monday in Los Angeles and 37 other cities. It will award more than $140 million in scholarships to 35,000 grade school students next year.

The new program, called the Children’s Scholarship Fund, is by far the largest such private aid effort in the country targeting children from kindergarten through eighth grade. It represents a major expansion of the controversial voucher approach to educational reform--providing money to parents and students to spend on schools of their choice, rather than funding schools directly.

Declaring that “competition can save American education,” fund founder Theodore J. Forstmann said Monday that his program is designed to give “equal opportunity” to disadvantaged families and to force improvement in what he called the “creaking monopoly” of the nation’s public school system.

Forstmann, a wealthy New York venture capitalist, launched the fund with WalMart heir John Walton three months ago. The two pledged $100 million of their own money and called on fellow business executives to match the amount. Thus far, Forstmann said, they have raised about $70 million and recruited such prominent figures as Los Angeles entertainment executive Michael Ovitz to the cause.

Stipends will be awarded for four years, with winners chosen by lottery in April. Officials said about 3,750 scholarships will be awarded in Los Angeles.

To be eligible for the drawing, parents need only demonstrate that they meet the low-income criteria, generally the same as the federal standard for receiving free school lunches, and that their child is eligible for admission to the school of their choice, officials said.

Families may request applications by calling (800) 805-KIDS.

Because individual awards are expected to run between $600 and $1,600 per year, most recipients are likely to use them to attend parochial schools, not the much more expensive non-church-related private schools. But demand is expected to be strong. When a pilot version of the program was opened in the District of Columbia last year, 7,600 families applied for 1,000 stipends. A New York City program got 20,000 applicants for 1,000 scholarships.

Families are expected to provide the difference between the award and the cost of the private school they choose, although they can aggregate other scholarships to meet the total.

Vouchers are a controversial idea in the world of school reform.

Proponents argue that public schools--like all monopolies--produce bad products at high cost and will accept change only under the spur of competition. Critics, mostly liberals, counter that vouchers would rob public schools of the strongest students, compound problems for public education and reduce support for the public system that--in the end--must still serve the vast majority of the country’s 50 million-plus students.

Forstmann, however, has recruited unusually broad support. President Clinton has endorsed the program. So has House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). And the Children’s Scholarship Fund board includes such diverse figures as Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), former First Lady Barbara Bush, retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young, civil rights leader Martin Luther King III and former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach.

In part, this is because even those who reject Forstmann’s critique of public education find it hard to oppose wealthy individuals giving their own money to needy families.

Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers and an outspoken foe of using tax dollars for vouchers, declined to criticize the Forstmann program when it was unveiled last June.

“I would never interfere with a private citizen’s right to spend his own funds,” she said in a letter to the New York Post, but “I would prefer to concentrate on programs that benefit the greatest numbers of students.”