School Voucher Proposal Dwarfs Existing Programs

California voters come November will be asked to create a massive school voucher program that would dwarf experiments underway in a smattering of American cities and profoundly alter the way education is funded.

Proposition 38 would provide taxpayer-funded chits worth at least $4,000 that each of the state’s 6.6 million schoolchildren could use to attend a private or religious school.

The California program would be orders of magnitude larger than all existing publicly funded experiments combined. About 14,000 students currently take part in voucher programs in Cleveland, Milwaukee and Florida.

If the initiative succeeds, which is far from certain, its scope would vault vouchers into the big leagues. “It could chart the course for education in California and reverberate nationally,” said Penny Howell, a consultant with EdSource, a nonprofit education research organization in Palo Alto.

Questions abound about how the initiative would work and whether it would ultimately impose more of a burden on taxpayers or save them money.

The most immediate result of the initiative would be to put the state on the hook for the largely affluent families of 650,000 pupils who are already in private schools. Each of those students would be eligible for at least $4,000, costing the state about $3.3 billion by 2004.

That provision angers even some traditional allies of vouchers, who call it a handout to the well-to-do.

The amount of the vouchers--which would be set by a formula tied to national per-pupil funding for education--is expected to rise over time.

Money for the vouchers would come from the state’s general tax funds. To partly pay for that, the initiative would wipe out a provision in current law that guarantees a certain level of funding for community colleges, adult education and most child care programs. Those programs would have to fight it out with other non-education budget items.

Over time, the state’s extra burden resulting from voucher payments would decline as more students moved to private schools.

The state spends much more than $4,000 on each public school student; this year public schools are costing taxpayers $6,700 per student. For each student moving to private school, the state would save the difference between the voucher amount and the public school’s per-pupil cost.

But private school enrollments would have to grow extensively before the state would break even. If 5% of all current public school students--300,000 pupils--took the vouchers, the state would still be spending an extra $2 billion a year, according to the legislative analyst’s office in Sacramento.

The state would break even only when 780,000 students, or 13% of current enrollment, left public schools.

Right now, there are only 32,000 open seats in California’s private schools, according to a survey by the California Catholic Conference, which is the state’s largest operator of private schools.

Under Proposition 38, families would not receive the voucher money directly. Instead, the checks would go to the private schools.

If the voucher exceeded the tuition, any residual amount would be held in a state account for the family. The money could be used to pay the student’s college tuition, with no limitations on the type or location of the college. A private college in Wyoming, for example, would be allowable.

Passage of Proposition 38 would have profound implications for other states at a time when many parents complain about poor performance by public schools. “School choice”--encompassing vouchers, charters and other reform efforts--has become a rallying cry, particularly in poor communities.

In addition to California, Michigan has a voucher initiative on its November ballot. But the Michigan measure would give vouchers only to students at schools with high dropout rates; California’s proposal would apply to all students.

Given all the variables, California voters have signaled increasing wariness about the proposal. A survey this month by the Public Policy Institute of California showed a majority of voters, 53%, opposing the measure because they did not believe it would help improve public schools and student achievement. Thirty-seven percent of voters favored the initiative, and 10% were uncertain.

“When voters are telling us they don’t see the initiative helping to improve schools, it’s difficult to see them embracing such a drastic change in the system,” said poll director Mark Baldassare.

Yet drastic change is exactly what Silicon Valley venture capitalist Timothy C. Draper had in mind when he paid about $2 million to get the initiative written and to gather the 1.2 million signatures needed to put it on the ballot. He has vowed to spend millions of his own fortune to ensure passage.

Citing California students’ low ranking in national reading and math tests, Chris Bertelli, a spokesman for the voucher initiative, said the state owes parents a choice in how to educate their children. Competition, he said, would force public schools to improve.

As configured, however, the measure raises many fundamental issues, including the use of public funds to cover religious school tuition, the citizenry’s commitment to public schools and equitable access to quality education.

Proposition 38 closely resembles an initiative that was trounced by California voters in 1993. That measure, Proposition 174, proposed a flat $2,600 voucher for any parent who wanted to enroll a child at a private school that agreed to participate. Like Proposition 38, that proposal made no call for adjusting the voucher amount in relation to a family’s financial need.

Among those opposing the current initiative, predictably, are teachers unions, the state Board of Education and Gov. Gray Davis, who has staked much of his reputation on an ambitious public school accountability program.

“Voucher advocates appeal to the notion of expanding opportunity,” said Bob Chase, president of the 2.5-million-member National Education Assn. “But the measure would create an entitlement to wealthy parents to pay tuition at elite private schools.”

In theory, the initiative would put well-heeled families in Bel-Air and parents in down-at-the-heels Pico Rivera on an equal footing.

Yet a new analysis by Policy Analysis for California Education, a think tank at UC Berkeley and Stanford, argues that the idea of equal choice for all is a false hope. Even when vouchers are aimed at lower-income families, as in Cleveland and Milwaukee, families that are better off are more likely to use them, the report said.

As for achievement of voucher students, the think tank said results have been uneven in small-scale programs. Some have significantly raised the math scores of African American children.

But vouchers and exposure to private schools appear to have had little or no effect on the math achievement of Latino and white students from low-income families. For voucher students generally, reading proficiency has hardly budged.

The lack of private school seats in California is another potential issue. Voucher supporters argue that new schools would open in response to added demand, but the dearth of current openings would limit, at least for several years, how many parents could shift their children to private schools.

Moreover, the initiative would not put private schools under any pressure to accept voucher students or to take in students with behavioral or learning problems.

If demand surged, said a think-tank researcher, Luis Huerta, “there is nothing to keep these schools from increasing tuition as a gate-keeping mechanism.”

Catholic schools hold about half the private school market in California and tend to be among the most affordable of non-public schools. For kindergarten through eighth grade, fees average about $2,200 a year. Catholic high schools charge about $4,200.

Robert Teegarden, director of education for the California Catholic Conference, said he doubted that $4,000 vouchers would provide the resources needed to build a significant number of Catholic schools, given the prohibitive costs of land and construction. Still, he noted that congregations of other faiths “would probably start schools tomorrow in their basements.”

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Proposition 38 at a Glance

Proposition 38 would give parents, regardless of income, a voucher worth at least $4,000 to send their children to private schools, including religious ones. The initiative would profoundly alter how the education of many California children is funded. The ballot initiative, an amendment to the state Constitution, would also:

* Exempt private schools from meeting standards, including state academic requirements.

* Require release of composite standardized-test scores of voucher pupils.

* Limit future health, safety, zoning and building restrictions on private schools.

* Replace Proposition 98, a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 1988 that guarantees a minimum level of funding for public schools. A new formula based on national per-pupil average funding would go into effect.

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What Would It Cost?

By 2004, Proposition 38 would cost California taxpayers about $3.3 billion to provide vouchers for the 650,000 students already in private or religious schools. Much of that would be offset by savings on students who shifted to private schools from public. This year the state pays $6,700 for each public school pupil. A look at the fiscal outcome, based on four estimates of how many students would make the shift:

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% of public Public school Net financial school students students shifting State’s savings outcome for* shifting to private to private from shifts California 5% 300,000 $1.3 billion $2 billion annual cost 13% 780,000 $3.3 billion break even 15% 900,000 $4 billion $700 million annual savings 25% 1.5 million $6.7 billion $3.4 billion annual savings

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Note: Figures have been adjusted to account for inflation and projected economic growth in the state.

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California’s Schools at a Glance

* About 6 million pupils attend kindergarten through 12th grade in California public schools.

* About 650,000 pupils are enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade in various private schools, including religious schools.

* California taxpayers this school year are spending $6,700 for each pupil enrolled in a public school.

* Existing private schools have an estimated 32,000 vacancies.

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Sources: Legislative analyst’s office; Policy Analysis for California Education; Prop. 38 Yes-School Vouchers 2000; No on Prop. 38 Campaign