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In this issue:
 • School Choice Legislative Gains
 • Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Supports Choice Program

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School Choice Legislation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 7, 2005

Contact: Laura Devany
602-468-0900

PA EXPANDS EDUCATION TAX CREDIT PROGRAM TO THOUSANDS MORE CHILDREN
2006 Targeted School Choice Scholarships Available Nationally Projected at 40% More than 2005

PHOENIX—Further increasing the number of school choice scholarships available to our nation’s children, the Pennsylvania Legislature early today passed a budget with a $4 million expansion of the existing Education Tax Credit Program. Two-thirds of which will go towards scholarships that will increase educational opportunities for more than 2,000 Pennsylvania schoolchildren.

This year, more than 93,000 children from low-income families exercised the power of school choice. In 2006, the number of targeted school choice scholarships available nationally is projected to increase by nearly 40 percent to more than 130,000. School choice bills targeted to low-income K–12 children passed 18 legislative houses in 11 states this year. Five states—Arizona, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Utah—enacted two new school choice programs and expanded five preexisting choice programs, with both new and existing program expansions remaining in serious legislative play in Arizona and Minnesota.

"The bipartisan support for the expansion of the corporate scholarship tax credit demonstrates that states that have the greatest experience with school choice are inclined to expand it, even when faced with competing budget priorities," declared Clint Bolick, president and general counsel of the Alliance for School Choice, the Phoenix-based organization that leads the national effort to support school choice programs to expand opportunities for economically disadvantaged schoolchildren.

Beginning next school year, tax credits will be increased from $40 to $44 million, with $29.3 million dedicated to scholarships and $14.7 million dedicated to innovative educational programs in public schools. The Legislature also approved reasonable additional reporting requirements to ensure accountability for scholarship, educational improvement, and pre-K scholarship organizations involved with the Educational Improvement Tax Credit program.

This year more than 25,000 children received EITC scholarships in 62 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties. Next year the numbers are projected to reach up to 27,400.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell signed the budget today.

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     Alliance for School Choice
     5080 N. 40th St. Suite 375
     Phoenix, AZ 85018
     www.AllianceForSchoolChoice.org

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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Supports Choice Program

Original URL: http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/jun05/334537.asp

Editorial: Voucher schools fill need

From the Journal Sentinel

Posted: June 18, 2005

A bold Milwaukee experiment—the 15-year-old school voucher program, assessed in a weeklong series of articles that ended Saturday in the Journal Sentinel—has clearly achieved its immediate goal: expanded choice for parents whose low incomes otherwise constrict their educational options for their children. What's less clear is the impact of the greater selection.

The anecdotal evidence, a sampling of which the series presented, is ample that the voucher program has rescued many children from the jaws of academic failure and has pushed some luckless kids further into those jaws. Politics has blocked efforts to gauge precisely—that is, statistically—the triumphs and the defeats.

Fifteen years later, emotions still wax hot over the program, whereby low-income Milwaukee parents redeem state-financed vouchers for tuition at private schools, including, as of seven years ago, religious schools. Its foes are still gunning for it; its advocates are still safeguarding it like a mother lion protecting its cubs.

Cooperation would better serve children. Is it too much to hope that both sides agree that bad schools, public and private, harm kids and that they together devise a plan to eliminate such schools?

The Journal Sentinel series can contribute to a genuine dialogue because it probes underneath the rhetoric to the reality of the program. The authors are veteran reporters Alan J. Borsuk, Sarah Carr and Leonard Sykes.

The Editorial Board backs the voucher program because it believes Milwaukee children are better off with it than without it. Some voucher schools are simply too wonderful for needy kids to lose. What's more, we have found powerful the testimony of parents who view the program as a godsend, having enabled them to move their children from schools where they were wilting to ones where they flower. Giving poor parents that ability, which their better-heeled peers already enjoy, is the equitable thing to do.

Yes, the inclusion of religious schools has given us pause. In fact, we had urged the courts to outlaw such inclusion. But the high courts for both the state and the nation blessed it instead. Since then, we have seen much evidence of church schools doing good for needy students. So we have come to accept this particular church-state partnership.

Still, we never did buy an argument some voucher backers put forth—namely, that the marketplace would hold the program sufficiently accountable. The theory goes that parents would flock to the good schools and flee from the bad schools, prompting the former to thrive and the latter to fold.

As the series amply showed, that's not quite how things work. Even blatantly bad schools draw parents, who often make choices on the basis of gut feelings and word of mouth, not extensive research. Instructively, parents have not yet shut down a single school in the program through their choices.

There is much to cheer on the accountability front, however. For one, voucher proponents, stunned by the emergence of bad voucher schools, have come to accept the argument that the program needs more regulation. For another, they and state education officials have been sitting down and hammering out new rules.

New law has already given the state Department of Public Instruction greater oversight, which the agency has used to shut down some schools and keep others from opening. These powers may suffice to close most of the remaining problem schools.

At the same time, efforts should be made to ensure that parental choices are as informed as possible. A clearinghouse of information about schools is in order. Parents ought to be able to go to a Web site or visit an office or a local library or make a phone call to get relevant information on voucher schools.

The best tool now is a poster commendably put out yearly by the Public Policy Forum, a local think tank. The poster lists rudimentary information for voucher schools, such as any religious affiliation and the presence of after-school programs. It is available at
www.publicpolicyforum.org/pdfs/2005VoucherPoster.pdf
or can be mailed to you by calling (414) 276-8240. What's needed is public or private financing that would permit the collection of more information, such as scores on standardized tests and the credentials of teachers.

Finally, officials must fix a major drawback of the voucher program—the lack of a formal evaluation. The most sensible suggestion to date is a 10-year longitudinal study with yearly reports, a suggestion that has failed to get off the ground due to puzzling opposition from the powerful state teachers union.

Over 15 years, the voucher program has shaken up education in Milwaukee, has brought to the city more private resources to the challenge of educating needy children and has expanded choices and, thus, hope for families. Now we need to measure its impact more precisely.

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