Obama Stance Against School Vouchers Fuels Close-to-Home Debate (Bloomberg)

A new law cutting off taxpayer-funded private education for poor children in Washington is shutting five-year-old Marquis Greene out of a school where his sisters have thrived.

It’s also providing a challenge to President Barack Obama’s education policies that’s as close to home as his daughters’ classrooms.

A spending law signed by Obama last month will end a program that gives low-income parents tuition vouchers of as much as $7,500 a year to send their children to private schools.

Among 54 participating schools are Sidwell Friends, where Sasha and Malia Obama are students, and Ambassador Baptist Church Christian School, where Sherrise Greene sends her two daughters and had wanted to enroll Marquis.

“I had high hopes that he would be attending with ascholarship with his sisters,” Greene said in an interview. “I’m just really hurt that it’s being ended, because I think it’s a good program.”

Greene, who likened participation in the voucher program to “winning the Powerball,” learned this month that Marquis can’t receive similar help. The program is scheduled to end after the coming school year, and Arne Duncan, Obama’s education secretary, decided not to let new students join.

“We think it is wrong to add another 200 kids into a program that is set to end next year,” an Education Department spokeswoman, Sandra Abrevaya, said in an e-mailed statement.
“Before adding any more kids, we need to make sure we can take care of the children already enrolled.”

Five of Sidwell’s current students receive vouchers and supplement them with other scholarships, said Ellis Turner, the school’s associate headmaster.

‘Children’s Classmates’

“It certainly presents an interesting question for President Obama,” said Dan Lips, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a research group in Washington that supports school-voucher programs. “Will he allow Congress to take away school from his children’s classmates?”

The voucher program, enacted in 2004, was backed by former President George W. Bush and congressional Republicans who said private-sector competition would improve public schools. Like many Democrats, Obama opposes vouchers as a long-term solution to the failings of public schools.

He hopes to persuade Congress to continue subsidizing 1,700 children now enrolled in Washington, according to White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

He believes that we should avoid disrupting the education of students currently enrolled in this program.

Such a compromise could let Sherrise Greene’s daughters, Charvea, 13, and Chyianne, 8, stay in private school beyond next year.

Honor Roll

Charvea had difficulty with subjects such as reading until vouchers made it possible for her to transfer four years ago to the Christian school. Now, she is on the honor roll and has been student-body president for three years, said Greene, 33, a single mother who works as a porter at a condominium.

“My little daughter looks up to her and wants to do the things that my older daughter is doing now.”

Teachers unions and many Democrats say school vouchers are ineffective and drain resources from public schools while pouring tax dollars into religious schools. Republicans, religious organizations and free-market groups say vouchers boost student achievement and give low-income families more educational choices.

Milwaukee, Cleveland

Cities such as Milwaukee and Cleveland use local tax dollars to subsidize private school for poor children.
Washington’s is the only federal school-voucher initiative. Children are selected by lottery from those applying.

The spending law enacted March 11 includes language by Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, to end funding for the program after the 2009-2010 school year unless Congress passes separate legislation to renew the 2004 law. A Republican effort to delete Durbin’s provision was
rejected by a vote of 58 to 39.

Like Obama, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee say vouchers should continue for current recipients. A Durbin spokesman, Max Gleischman, didn’t return a call seeking comment.

Quaker School

Sidwell Friends is a Quaker school that emphasizes diversity. Its tuition is $28,442 a year for lower grades and $1,000 more for middle and high school, according to its Web site. The school says 22 percent of students receive financial aid, with an average award of $19,264.

Voucher proponents are using the Obama family’s choice of Sidwell Friends as a “red herring,” said Greg Anrig, vice president of policy at the Century Foundation, a New York-based research group.

“The vast majority who receive vouchers aren’t attending these elite, $20,000-a-year private schools,” Anrig said in an interview. “They’re going largely to parochial schools that have a large number of low-income students.”

Less than 3 percent of Washington children who received vouchers for the 2006-2007 school year used them as part of their financial aid to attend schools that charge tuition of $20,000 or more, according to a 2007 report by the U.S.

Government Accountability Office.

During the 2007-2008 school year, fewer than half the teachers at five private schools taking vouchers had a bachelor’s degree or higher, the GAO said. Some of the schools lacked credentials such as building occupancy permits.

‘Families Are Choosing’

The nonprofit Washington Scholarship Fund, which administers the voucher program, is working with the city and participating schools on issues raised in the GAO report, said Byron Davis, the group’s senior director for business development and communications.

“Families are choosing schools that work best for their children,” Davis said in an interview. “They’re getting an opportunity that people who have money take for granted, especially in this community.”

Voucher advocates say Congress should reconsider its decision to end the program in light of an Education Department report, released April 3, that shows improved student achievement among participants.

Students who were chosen to receive vouchers had higher reading test scores — the equivalent of 3.1 months of additional learning — in the program’s third year than students who weren’t offered the aid, according to the report. It didn’t find improvement in math scores.

“This is really encouraging initial evidence,” said Lips of the Heritage Foundation. “ The program should be continued and expanded.”

No Improvement

Duncan said the Education Department findings don’t warrant a continuation of the voucher program, except for children already enrolled. While some students showed “modest gains” in reading, those who had switched to private schools from “low performing” public schools showed no improvement, he said in an
e-mailed statement.

Instead of more vouchers, Obama wants to increase the number of charter schools, which operate under contracts with public school districts in Washington and most states. Charter schools are exempt from many state and local regulations that govern traditional public schools.

One-third of Washington’s 70,000 public-school students now go to charter schools, said Jack Jennings, president of the Washington-based Center on Education Policy.

“You have a small number that are going to parochial schools using vouchers, but you have a much, much larger number that are going to public charter schools of all types,”
Jennings said.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Molly Peterson in Washington at mpeterson9@bloomberg.net .