This week the Mosses and tens of thousands of families are anxiously awaiting the results of the Children’s Scholarship Fund, a nationwide lottery that will award private- or parochial-school scholarships worth $170 million to 40,000 low-income students. The lottery is the brainchild of billionaire financier Ted Forstmann, and the latest front in the school-voucher debate. Privately funded scholarships take public money out of the argument–an end run that deprives liberals of their main objection to vouchers and forces conservatives to back up their words with their pocketbooks. But while Forstmann’s largesse has families dreaming of better schools for their kids, critics are wondering if the losers will be even worse off than they were before.
Who could possibly object to billionaires giving poor kids scholarships? Mostly opponents of publicly funded vouchers who say the private programs are stealthy bait-and-switch tactics to whet the appetites of parents–and get them to put more pressure on politicians to support government vouchers. Those behind private scholarships don’t dispute that might happen, but they insist it isn’t their goal. “We’re not here to get involved with legislative solutions,” says CSF president James Courtovich. Opponents like Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers, insist that “it has a bad effect on the children who don’t get the scholarships. It’s no longer just an act of charity which one can’t argue with.” In many districts, the bottom line suffers because state-aid formulas are based on enrollment. Next year, for example, Edgewood Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas, stands to lose $4 million out of its $98 million budget because 837 students have left through a private program run by a group called CEO America. Voucher opponents also say the private programs hurt public schools by skimming off the families who care most about quality education.
But Children’s Scholarship Fund officials say programs like theirs can actually help public education because schools have to shape up to keep students. “The system is unfair,” says Courtovich. “It really can’t get better unless, like everything else in our country, it has a competitive environment.” Families selected in the lottery will get between $600 and $1,600 annually for four years. Parents must pay the rest of the money themselves, which fund officials say is a way of forcing them to have a stake in their kids’ education. Courtovich expects the average parental contribution to be $1,000 each year. And not all public-school officials feel threatened. “If it gives poor kids some options they might not normally have, so be it,” says Paul Vallas, superintendent of the Chicago public schools.
The biggest winners, aside from families with the lucky numbers, are Roman Catholic school systems, the most likely option for inner-city parents. “Every year there are families who say to us they’d like to stay,” says Chicago archdiocese superintendent Elaine Schuster, “but tuition keeps escalating, and they’re being forced to move their children out.” Average annual tuition at Chicago’s 275 Catholic elementary schools is $2,100; at the 45 high schools, it’s $4,500. That’s nearly half the cost of a typical nonsectarian private school, but still beyond the reach of many inner-city families like the Mosses. If the CSF computer doesn’t spit out Frankey’s name next week, Gloria Moss says she’ll try again. “You have to keep going if you want your kids to do better.” For the Moss family, a $1,600 check would make the entire voucher debate truly academic.
The Public Voucher War
On state and city levels, battles are raging over the right to opt out of public schools:
Milwaukee: The nation’s first public voucher program is in its ninth year. Next fall funding jumps to $28 million to include religious schools.
New York City: Popular schools Chancellor Rudy Crew threatened to quit after Mayor Rudy Giuliani pushed to test city-funded vouchers
Washington D.C.: President Clinton has twice vetoed voucher plans passed by Congress
