Think it couldn't happen here in California? Think again. Teachers in Wisconsin, Florida, Cleveland, Texas and Arizona didn't think it could happen in their states either.
All of those states have public schools that are losing money, students, and teachers to private schools. The reason is the same in each state - vouchers.
In November, California voters will consider the Draper voucher initiative, Proposition 38. If approved, it will take billions of dollars away from public schools and pay for students to attend private schools, even those already enrolled in private schools. Public schools, which are already overcrowded and lacking in resources, could decline rapidly if vouchers are voted in. Many education experts say that, rather than investing in public schools, vouchers are the equivalent of abandoning them.
While vouchers were voted down in California in 1993, analysts say it could be much more difficult to defeat this time around. The voucher movement has gained ground since then, and there's a lot of money backing its expansion.
Although vouchers presently impact only a fraction of America's 52 million students, the idea has grown considerably since it was first proposed by economist Milton Friedman in the 1950s. Beginning with a pilot program for 300 students in Milwaukee in 1990, vouchers have expanded to 63,840 children in 31 states today, mostly from low-income families, according to the New York Times.
This includes 11,538 students (mainly in Cleveland and Milwaukee) using public money to attend private schools, and about 70 small programs throughout the country, privately financed by wealthy individuals.
Ever wonder what life is like for those living in areas with vouchers? Mostly, it's a disaster for public schools, teachers and students. And there are plenty of folks who will "vouch" for that.
"My advice to California teachers is: If there is anything you can do to actually stop vouchers from happening, do it. You are lucky because it's on the ballot. You have a chance to get people to vote against it," says Paulette Copeland, president of the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association. "We had no choice; it was legislated."
A decade ago, a pilot program for vouchers was launched in Milwaukee due to parent dissatisfaction with public education in general and low test scores in particular. Initially, legislators mandated that the program would provide $1,900 per year for children at or below the poverty level to attend non-religious private schools. In 1998, the legislation was expanded to include religious schools. Today, parents receive vouchers of $5,100 per child annually to attend private schools, or what people in Milwaukee refer to as "choice" schools.
Milwaukee's voucher program for 1998-99 cost approximately $29 million for 6,000 students. "The impact is that we have a shortage of funds for public schools," says Copeland. "This year we are $32 million in the hole, and part of that is because we have 'choice' schools."
Schools haven't just lost money, laments Copeland. "We have also lost children."
"One of the things that has happened is that the state will give choice schools full payment for 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds to attend private preschool, so we are losing them in the very beginning to private schools. Also, choice schools are able to offer before- and after-school care, which public schools don't have the money for. Out of 160 public schools in the district, only five can offer that."
As a result, public schools have had to make do with less. "They have cut reading teachers, music teachers, gym teachers and educational assistants," reports Copeland. "They tried to cut programs for special-needs kids, but parents really protested and they restored some of the programs." And speaking of kids with special needs, most private schools in Milwaukee don't take them, says Copeland.
Teachers need to be on the front lines on the battle against vouchers, says Joe Lara (left), teaching billingual social studies to Carlos Flores, Jose Cavazos and Johnathon Case (above)
"This year, we're going to lose 50 teachers in the district," says Copeland. "Because of choice schools, teachers have lost jobs or been transferred to other schools. There are teaching jobs at private schools, but they pay hardly anything. Teachers in private schools start at about $15,000 a year and don't go any higher than $25,000 a year. In public schools we start teachers at $27,000 a year and the top salary is $57,000." She adds that voucher advocates in Milwaukee are constantly criticizing unionized teachers as being overpaid.
While vouchers were intended for low-income families in low-performing schools, only about a third of Milwaukee voucher students come from public schools. Most are already enrolled in private schools or just starting kindergarten, according to Wisconsin state enrollment figures. And, says Copeland, there are other abuses in the program, such as one choice school that housed 250 K-6 children in one large room.
"It is very unfair, because anyone can open a choice school," says Copeland. "No one investigates their background. Anyone who works for a public school goes through a background check but with choice schools - nothing. We had one woman who didn't graduate from high school, but she was running a choice school. It ended up closing because she embezzled money."
There's no accountability either, she says. "Public schools in Milwaukee have standardized tests, but choice schools don't have to administer them to students. Nothing that applies to us applies to them. Their teachers don't have to be certified or have a college degree. No one oversees the type of curriculum they have at their schools. Some students have come back to public schools because they are having difficulties learning in private schools. I have had a third-grader who was getting A's and B's in a choice school, but she was having difficulty reading at first-grade level."
Copeland says that vouchers have demoralized Milwaukee teachers. "This year, morale has been worse than ever. People promote choice schools by degrading public schools," she says.
"They describe this as 'competition,' but I don't see it. How can you have competition when you have one set of schools operating under one set of rules, and another set of schools operating under a different set - or without rules?"
While vouchers have cost Milwaukee schools a fortune, they have not helped student achievement. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Professor Alex Molnar studied the Milwaukee program and concluded: "In sum, no strong evidence exists that participation in a voucher program increases student achievement."
Even early proponents of the program have become disillusioned. Annette (Polly) Williams, a black state legislator from Milwaukee who fought for the pilot school program, now says that vouchers allow corporate America to exploit the needs of low-income, minority families. "Low-income, minority parents don't feel any more power with vouchers," she has been quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, there appears to be no relief in sight. The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to let stand the Wisconsin Supreme Court's ruling upholding the constitutionality of Milwaukee's voucher program. According to state officials, 22 new private schools have agreed to join the voucher program this year, many of them religious schools.
Meanwhile, in Florida, all of the public schools are graded on the basis of how students perform on standardized tests. Students attending schools rated as failing for two consecutive years are eligible to apply for vouchers, and can transfer to private schools or "non-failing" public schools under Gov. Jeb Bush's education reform plan. Parents are given a voucher in the amount of $4,000 per year per child.
Last year, the first year of the voucher program, only two schools (both in Pensacola) were deemed low enough. Both elementary schools - A.A. Dixon Elementary and Spencer Bibbs Learning Academy in Escambia County - are located in the inner city and serve a high percentage of minority students living in poverty. The two schools lost more than 50 students to vouchers.
This year between 75 and 100 schools statewide were expected to receive failing grades for the second consecutive year, which would have made an estimated 60,000 students eligible for vouchers this fall. However, the schools were able to boost test scores enough to avoid being labeled failures. The action effectively puts expansion on hold despite a recent court decision that allows the program to continue while a legal challenge moves through the courts.
"I'd sure like to help you all in California," says Arlene Costello, president of the Escambia Education Association. "I don't want to see what happened to us happen to you."
When the Florida governor put the plan into effect, teachers were surprised, recalls Costello. "We had to scramble. We only had two weeks to put together a plan for these two schools, and the plan had to be approved by the governor and his cabinet. We had emergency meeting after emergency meeting."
Meanwhile, letters sent to parents of students at the two schools from the Department of Education and the school district, encouraged them to apply for vouchers to private schools. Out of the five private schools in the area, only 60 slots were available. Many students were turned away. While some of the students went to private schools and decided to return to public schools, the money allocated for their vouchers did not come back with them, notes Costello.
Last year, the two elementary schools were converted to year-round status, and the school year was extended to 210 days. Extra money in the form of grants was pumped in to pay for after-school tutoring, reduced student-teacher ratio of 15 to 1, and other improvements.
"We got all the great things that we were craving before vouchers," says Costello. "Now, suddenly, they are finally addressing the needs of inner-city schools, whereas before, when we talked to the Legislature, it fell on deaf ears."
Some suspect that these two schools were given extra money just so voucher critics could not blame the program for siphoning money out of the public school system. And indeed, in July, just as the county was gearing up to expand the program, the commissioner of education announced that the vouchers effort had proven so successful in getting low-rated schools to improve their test scores that it wouldn't be necessary to offer any new vouchers this fall.
When the voucher program goes statewide, most educators doubt that extra funding will continue to be pumped into public schools that lose students to voucher schools.
"I don't know where they would get the money for extras," says Costello. "They are having a difficult time apportioning money to schools in Florida as it is."
At A.A. Dixon and Spencer Bibbs, teachers and students are burned out from the extra work and the longer school year, says Costello. "I was there last night, and morale was very, very low. Teachers and the kids are stressed out from being bombarded with legislative mandates on things they have to do."
The two campuses are at the center of a media circus "with people carrying cameras parading in and out of the schools," and the kids made to feel as if they are failures.
Public school teachers in Florida feel hurt and betrayed by the voucher plan, says Costello. "Overall, there has been the realization that education has become political. The Legislature is more concerned about politics than whether vouchers help or hurt the public school system. And it is upsetting that private schools are not being subjected to the same accountability measures as public schools. They are given preferential treatment."
She urges teachers in California to fight the November voucher initiative tooth and nail.
"Teachers in your state need to be knowledgeable about the impact of voucher programs. Talk now about the good things happening in your public schools. Build coalitions between schools, parents, the community, the chamber of commerce and other community groups. Build bridges and sell yourselves. Have conversations about the expectations of schools and what schools are doing to improve learning. Looking back at what happened to us, we should have been doing all these things."
In Ohio, Cleveland's voucher program has been rampant with abuse and illegalities since it began five years ago.
The program was supposed to serve low-income families. However, in January 1999, a special state audit found that students with household incomes of up to $80,000 had received vouchers for years. Program officials did not even verify that voucher students actually lived in the Cleveland school district, according to the state auditor.
Last year, only about a quarter of voucher students came from public schools. The rest were either previously enrolled in private schools or incoming kindergartners.
In 1997, an independent financial audit found that $1.9 million had been misspent, including $1.4 million paid to taxi companies to transport students to voucher schools. Since 1997, program officials have uncovered more than $400,000 in taxi fares billed for students on days when they were absent from school, according to the auditors' report.
In 1998, the program ran 41 percent over budget, forcing the state to take $2.9 million from public schools to cover the overruns.
"It's been a real fiasco," sums up Michael Billirakis, president of the Ohio Education Association. "The morale of Cleveland teachers is real low from continually taking a beating in the public eye. Politicians and the press continue to hit on them."
Since 1995, the voucher program has drained $5 million annually from Cleveland public schools by giving students a $2,500 voucher for private schools each year. "Five million may not seem like a lot of money when Cleveland has a $200 million school budget, but that money could be used to assist a lot of kids," says Billirakis. "It could be used to renovate bad building facilities and improve safety and security."
Like California, Cleveland schools do not have any alignment between standards, curriculum and assessment. In such a system, says Billirakis, public schools were set up for failure by politicos, thereby paving the way for vouchers. (Many suspect the same ploy is being used in California.)
"Tell teachers in California that vouchers are nothing but snake oil, which is how we refer to the voucher program here. Voucher people tell poor minority parents that vouchers will be a way to get their children out of poverty, but it doesn't do that at all. Vouchers don't help most children. Most children get left behind in schools that have less money and resources because of vouchers. Our objective ought to be to educate all children to their fullest potential, not focus on a select group of children."
The Cleveland voucher system has been kicked around in the Ohio courts. Most recently the program was ruled unconstitutional under the First Amendment, because most voucher schools are religious schools. All parties involved in litigation, including the NEA, fully expect the case to land before the U.S. Supreme Court in the not-too-distant future.
In texas, school pride and district coffers took a beating when the Children's Education Opportunity (CEO) Foundation started a 10-year, $50 million voucher program in the community of Edgewood two years ago. The Edgewood School District lost $6 million in state aid after 837 students left.
"It hit us hard, and we didn't even know it was coming," recalls Diana Herrera, president of the Edgewood Classroom Teachers Association.
Ironically, Eastwood schools, which had once been among the state's most problematic, had been steadily improving before the private voucher program went into effect. SAT scores and parental involvement had been rising, and the dropout rate had been dropping. Not one of the schools in the Edgewood District was labeled a "low performing" school. Although others in the San Antonio area were, they were not targeted by the foundation, says Herrera.
The Edgewood School District encompasses 28 K-12 schools and serves a student population that is 98 percent Hispanic and mostly low income. The scholarship provides private school tuition for low-income Edgewood students - up to $3,500 for elementary and middle school and up to $4,000 for high school.
Students who passed the Texas Academic Assessment of Skills standardized test received letters encouraging them to apply for vouchers. Those who did not pass the test did not receive the invitations.
"Private schools were handpicking who got letters," recalls Herrera. "You could have a family of five children, and maybe two kids got letters and others didn't. It's not parental choice - it's the private schools' choice as to whether they want your child. The child has to meet the needs of the private schools; the school doesn't meet the needs of the child."
"The private schools in the area took the cream of the crop - the best and the brightest," says Herrera. "Three gifted children left my school. Private schools took only two children labeled special education - and those were children with speech problems."
The student exodus meant fewer teachers were needed, so the district offered a retirement incentive package. "They wanted to get rid of the top-paid, most expensive teachers," says Herrera. "Forty-five teachers and 38 paraprofessionals retired."
Ironically, some students accepted into the private schools have returned to Edgewood public schools, says Herrera. "They started coming back because it wasn't what they thought it would be. Vouchers did not pay for uniforms, lunch, transportation and a lot of other costs. Private schools demand a lot of time from parents, like being there on Saturday to cut the grass. Two of the gifted students from my school came back, because they said the curriculum at the private school was too slow."
The private voucher program in Edgewood was intended to pave the way for a statewide voucher program. But the community of Edgewood fought back. Thousands of Edgewood parents and teachers began a letter-writing and e-mail campaign to legislators. Busloads of Edgewood parents, teachers and students lobbied educators and the state board of education.
"For now, we have fought off state-funded vouchers," says Herrera. "The bills never reached the floor [of the Legislature]. We owe it to Edgewood parents. We as teachers had to keep them informed. But it was the parents of Edgewood who stopped Texas from having statewide, publicly funded vouchers."
Students with challenges to overcome - like Yahaira Grijalva who's an English language learner - would be left behind in a voucher system.
In Arizona, vouchers come disguised as "school tax credits." A 1997 law allows taxpayers to donate $500 to private school "scholarship funds" or $200 to public schools and take the same amount off their taxes.
In theory, the practice was supposed to get needy students into private schools and give public schools money for extracurricular activities. But, according to the Arizona Republic, the program has diverted millions of dollars from needy students to pay private school tuition for more affluent students.
According to recent newspaper accounts:
- Many donations for private school scholarship funds are earmarked for students already enrolled in private schools instead of new students, "essentially creating a state voucher system."
- Since donors can designate a specific child - but not their own child - as the recipient of their contribution, parents are writing $500 checks for their friends' children, and vice versa. Low-income parents, unable to donate to the private school scholarship fund, are being left out in the cold.
- Since the state doesn't regulate or monitor the tax credit program, it is left open to abuse.
All of this means that millions of dollars that would have been spent in public schools have been used to send children to private schools, asserts Penny Kotterman, president of the Arizona Education Association. In all, $14.7 million was collected statewide for private school tuition tax credits, which went into a privately managed fund that allocates scholarships to private and religious schools. That money would have otherwise gone into the state's general fund, says Kotterman. She estimates that public schools throughout the state received at least $8 million less this year based on the percentage of the general fund schools receive. And that amount of money skimmed from public schools to pay for private schools will likely grow.
"Scholarship agencies have made it clear that they are just getting started," says Kotterman. "They expect to triple and quadruple the amounts of money they get next year from school tax credits. There is no cap or limit on the amount that can be collected. And this was a permanent piece of legislation."
Having any money taken away from public schools is especially devastating since Arizona is 50th in per-pupil spending in the nation, says Kotterman. "We have real class size issues and school facilities issues."
Arizona also has more charter schools than any other state, as well as many privately funded voucher programs.
"There was not a groundswell of public support for this, nor a huge legislative majority," says Kotterman. "By virtue of just one vote, it was legislated into law."
Ironically, the tax-credit plan was touted as being an "alternative to vouchers," says the AEA president. "Somehow proponents were able to convince people there was a difference. But there really is no difference. They call it tax credits, but it is nothing but a backdoor voucher plan."
Don't let it happen here! "We need teachers to start educating their communities about the dangers of vouchers," says CTA President Wayne Johnson. "We especially need to work with our minority communities in California, which have been targeted by voucher people. If we work together, we can beat this thing. But it won't be easy. This is the fight of our lives."
"Vouchers are not just a color issue but also an economic issue," says Sweetwater Education Association member Joe Lara, who teaches bilingual social studies at Sweetwater High School. "Voucher supporters are targeting low-income people as well as people of color."
Lara, who is actively working to build the No on 38 Coalition at the local level, says, "Grassroots voter outreach to communities of color and working class communities will definitely be a focus for us."
In addition to distributing lawn signs and working the phone banks, members of the coalition, which includes the unions that belong to the San Diego Labor Council, will be walking precincts and "doing as much as we can to complement the media campaign already out there. We will knock on doors and talk to people. We want everyone to get a No on 38 message."
Lara is involved for two reasons. "As a parent of children in the district, I believe vouchers would hurt their schools and take resources away from them. As a teacher, I believe vouchers would undermine my efforts - as well as my district's efforts and my union's efforts - to improve public education."
Lara says vouchers would "increase the gap between the haves and have-nots." Students with challenges to overcome - mastering a second language, dealing with learning disabilities, presenting disciplinary and behavioral problems, coming from families with low income levels - would be left behind if vouchers were enacted. "We at public schools teach all students regardless of any challenges they face."
Teachers need to be out-front on this issue, he adds. "We need to be the front-line troops, because there will be devastating consequences for public education if the voucher initiative comes to pass."
