Students like Delano Coffy are at the heart of brewing political fights and court battles over whether public dollars should go to school vouchers to help make private schools more affordable.
He was failing in his neighborhood public elementary school in Indianapolis until his mother enrolled him in a Roman Catholic school. Heather Coffy has scraped by for years to pay the tuition for Delano, now 16 and in a Catholic high school, and his two younger siblings, who attend the same Catholic elementary as their brother did. She’s getting help today from a voucher program, passed last year at the urging of Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, that allows her to use state money for her children’s education.
“I can’t even tell you how easy I can breathe now knowing that for at least for this year my kids can stay at the school,” said the single mother, who filed a petition in court in support of the law. The state Supreme Court is hearing a challenge to the law, which provides vouchers worth on average more than $4,000 a year to low- and middle-income families. A family of four making about $60,000 a year qualifies.
For all the arguments in favor, there are opponents who say vouchers erode public schools by taking away money, violate the separation of church and state by giving public dollars to religious-based private schools, and aren’t a proven way to improve test scores.
Fights about using tax dollars to help make private schools more affordable are popping up around the country.
In Louisiana, Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal won a victory Thursday with passage of legislation that expands statewide a voucher program in New Orleans as part of broad changes to the state’s education system.
Virginia lawmakers recently passed a bill backed by Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell allowing a tax credit for contributions to private school scholarship programs, and Florida GOP Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill expanding a similar program.
Creating or expanding voucher or certain scholarship programs has been debated in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Ohio, New Jersey and elsewhere.
Democrats historically have shunned vouchers, but some are joining the push by many tea party-inspired Republicans. The momentum carries over from last year’s congressional debate over whether to extend the District of Columbia’s voucher program.
House Speaker John A. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, and other congressional Republicans successfully pushed for that program to be included as part of a last-minute deal to avert a federal government shutdown.
The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, an advocacy group based in Indianapolis, estimates that about 212,000 students are using vouchers or tax scholarship programs through more than 30 such programs, 17 of which provide vouchers. The group said that total has risen from 36,000 students in 2000.
With state budgets facing in recent years a “fiscal buzz saw” and education frequently about half a state’s budget, there’s a recognition that better value is needed, said Robert Enlow, the president of the Friedman Foundation.
“People are beginning to see that allowing families the ability to choose is giving them access to quality education they would not otherwise have had,” Mr. Enlow said.
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