Do school vouchers belong in Utah?

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Correction: Parents for Choice in Education and other voucher supporters contributed $750,000 to last year's political campaigns. A story in Monday's newspaper incorrectly attributed that amount to Parents for Choice alone.

Four months after kindergarten started, Kristi Saunders of Riv- erton pulled her daughter from a traditional public school and enrolled her in a charter school. She said the hearing-impaired girl had been ignored by her speech therapist and got few audio-enhancement services in her crowded classroom.

Virginia Goold had been frustrated for years before transferring her seventh-grader to a charter school. Goold said her kids got lost in large classes, and communication with the overworked teachers was all too rare.

Both mothers have warm memories about the teachers and sympathize with overburdened public schools. But they're so pleased with their switches, they want parents to have even more options outside the district system.

Sentiments such as theirs fuel the debate about school vouchers, already under way at the Legislature again this year. Last year's proposal would have let parents spend some state education funds on private school tuition. A draft of the 2007 bill looks similar.

Key legislators support the movement and a pro-voucher political action committee has lobbied aggressively with hefty donations, complimentary dinners and a trip to Milwaukee, home of the nation's largest and oldest voucher program.

Legislators left impressed, but previous Utah proposals have looked little like the Milwaukee program. And despite its many successes, that system has confirmed some of opponents' fears and is still fixing flaws after 15 years.

Voucher arguments

Voucher advocates include parents fed up with crowded and underperforming schools. They say vouchers give disadvantaged families the means to escape failing schools.

Also on board are reformers who believe public schools suffer under a bloated bureaucracy. Providing choices outside that system could drive all schools to improve as they compete for students.

Opponents include teachers' unions and public school administrators. They worry voucher-funded private schools may skim the best students, leaving neighborhood schools with lower achievers and less money to pay the same operating costs.

Civil rights advocates say private schools aren't equally available to everyone. Tax watchdogs don't want public money funding religious schools and worry because private schools are subject to less oversight.

Odds for this year's bill

Ideological pros and cons fuel vigorous debates in states considering vouchers. Utah's voucher supporters have bolstered their efforts this year.

Parents for Choice in Education and other voucher supporters contributed $750,000 to last year's political campaigns. The PAC also hired powerful lobbyist Doug Foxley.

Last year's voucher died without being assigned to a committee, but proponents have the support of powerful lawmakers this year, including House and Senate leaders and key committee leaders. They have the votes they need in the Senate, but still seek majority support in the House.

When Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. announced a bold education budget proposal last month, some conservative legislators vowed to tie new school funding to voucher concessions. A bill hasn't yet emerged, but House Republicans saw a draft in caucus Thursday. At that lunch, Rep. Sylvia Andersen, R-Sandy, was the first to weigh it against school choice's ground zero: Milwaukee.

Parents for Choice hosted a recent trip and Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, returned saying the program debunks opposition. In some cases he's right. But Milwaukee's voucher system is far more modest than what Utah lawmakers have proposed.

Milwaukee's system

The Milwaukee Public School District enacted its Parental Choice Program in spring 1990. It let the district's poorest families transfer their share of state per-pupil funding to secular private schools in lieu of tuition.

Only 1 percent of district students could participate, limiting the public school exodus opponents feared. And the program was available only to families earning less than 1.75 times the federal poverty rate (the average family income was $11,630 during the first five years.)

Legislators allowed religious schools in 1995, and lawmakers have gradually raised the student cap, which now sits at 22,500, or roughly 20 percent of district students. Last year marked the first time children were turned away, said Joe Donovan, spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

Independent reviews of the program have found mixed results.

Achievement gains among voucher students have been negligible, according to several studies, but parental satisfaction has soared. And Milwaukee's private schools now house roughly equal numbers of white and minority students, though most schools are segregated.

Enrollment in the program seems to be slowing and the effect on public schools is still debated. Yet fears of losing the best students proved unfounded - most voucher kids were below-average public school students.

"Everyone agrees there wasn't really cream skimming," said John Witte, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who led a mandated annual review.

But accountability has been a problem. Legislators and choice advocates alike have asked for more oversight.

The choice program spurred nearly 80 start-up schools, including several with "alarming deficiencies," according to a 2005 investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. A school opened by a convicted rapist faced a state investigation and allegations of staff drug use on school grounds, yet parents continued to enroll their kids.

"Four of the worst schools have closed," the Sentinel reported. "But the closures were the result of outside intervention or financial malfeasance, not parents voting with their feet."

Utah's proposal

For a decade and a half, Milwaukee's program has been a work in progress. Other states have also had mixed success with vouchers.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Cleveland's voucher system because parents were free to choose nonreligious schools. But Florida's supreme court struck down its program for violating state constitutional language about public education.

Yet all three programs limit vouchers to failing schools or troubled districts. Utah's proposal would make vouchers available to every public school student in the state.

"The design of these programs is absolutely critical," said UW-Madison's Witte. "You can design them so literally the money is drained off [from public schools]."

It's difficult to predict how many Utah students might use vouchers. Utah's private schools could accommodate at least 6,000 more kids, according to a 2004 University of Utah analysis.

Advocates argue vouchers could help relieve overcrowding. Plus, the bill would let districts keep some portion of the funding for students who leave.

But "creaming" is a possibility in the Salt Lake Valley because low-income families have less access to private schools. Private schools are clustered mostly in wealthier neighborhoods and working-class parents often can't drive kids to and from school.

Plus, Utah's voucher proposal wouldn't cover full tuition. Legislators assume parents will be more invested in their children's education if they have to come up with some of the money. Parents such as Saunders believe families will work to secure scholarships, car pools and whatever else they need. And she feels for families stuck on long charter-school waiting lists with few other options.

"That is why I'd like to see the voucher system open," she said. "I think parents should be able to add to their child's education by paying extra."