Turning away from public education.

• Author: Hirsch, Eric
• Position: Includes related articles on home schooling and tuition tax credits/deductions - Alternative schooling proposals to address issue of quality/safety in public school education - Cover Story

AS MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT PUBLIC SCHOOLS' PERFORMANCE AND SAFETY ARISE, SO DO MORE PROPOSALS FOR ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLING. ALL ARE CONTROVERSIAL.

With a daily barrage of articles condemning student, teacher and school performance, it is no wonder that both parents and policymakers are questioning whether public schools have failed. Increasing enrollment, budget crunches and teacher shortages may have stretched public education beyond its limits.

These concerns are driving parents to look for more and different choices. And state legislatures across the country are trying to accommodate them, examining policies that could help move students from public schools to private schools or away from organized schooling altogether. Through vouchers and tuition tax credits, lawmakers are creating alternatives to public education for a growing number of dissatisfied parents and raising serious questions about the role of public education in the new millennium.

A NEW ACCEPTANCE OF VOUCHERS?

Florida passed the first statewide voucher program this session, and interest in the issue has never been higher. Although this year was not atypical in terms of the number of state legislatures examining vouchers (approximately 16), the seriousness of debate was unprecedented. Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Texas all came close to passing statewide programs.

Vouchers use state money to provide tuition subsidies for students to attend private schools. Until Florida, the only publicly funded voucher programs legislated were pilot programs in Milwaukee and Cleveland.

According to Chester Finn Jr., former assistant secretary of education and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, state legislatures are considering vouchers for a number of reasons: the continuing proliferation of other choice programs, the surge of interest in private schools for safety and academic reasons, changing public opinion and clarification of constitutional issues. All of these influences are coming together to make the public and state legislators think about new alternatives in education. Charter, magnet and alternative schools are expanding educational opportunities far beyond the neighborhood school.

Although government has been experimenting with choice and private service providers in the health and prison industries, virtually all students attend a traditional public school funded by and reporting to state and local school boards. "Only within education does choice seem like a revolutionary doctrine. The absence of choice is actually the anomaly," Finn says.

Finn believes that "people are unhappy with traditional public school performance for two reasons: Kids aren't learning to read, and kids aren't safe. Parents are beginning to say that if a neighborhood school won't come through, I will find one that will."

The Legislature in Florida became the first to allow parents across the state to "find" a private school, at the taxpayer's expense. Florida passed its voucher plan this year as part of a larger education reform bill proposed by Governor Jeb Bush. The program offers "opportunity scholarships" to students in chronically low-performing schools.

Under a new accountability program, students attending schools performing poorly in any two years during a four-year period will be eligible to receive a voucher to attend any private school or better performing public school.

Support for this new approach was far from unanimous, with many legislators concerned about the impact of the voucher program on Florida's public school system, Vouchers have created a situation where "the biggest opponent of public schools has become the state itself," argues Florida Senate Democratic Leader Buddy Dyer. He contends that Florida's new plan deals a heavy blow to struggling public schools and that it "will never help improve public education."

Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association, agrees, arguing that vouchers are "siphoning off scarce public resources for the benefit of a few." Chase offers alternatives for improving public education, including smaller class sizes and successful models of comprehensive school reforms. "The only credible hope for millions...