COLORADO STATE

Washington Times
April 3, 2003
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030403-642263.htm
Colorado to be first in school vouchers
By George Archibald

Colorado is on its way to becoming the first state to enact a statewide school-voucher program since the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last summer upholding vouchers in Cleveland. Texas and Louisiana may not be far behind. The Colorado state Senate on Monday voted 36-28 to enact a House-passed bill to allow students in Denver and 11 other districts with eight or more schools rated "poorly" under state criteria to opt out of public schools. Those students can then use 75% to 85% of its public per-pupil funds, ranging from about $5,000 to $6,000, at private schools of their choice. Next year, the bill would cap enrollment in voucher-funded schools at 1% of a district's students, but could rise to 6% by the fourth year.

Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican and longtime advocate of school choice, said he is eager to sign the bill, while the Colorado Education Association, representing 36,000 public school teachers, has threatened a legal challenge. "It enjoys support from a diverse crowd of state leaders, including the Bighorn Center for Public Policy, the Colorado Children's Defense Fund, the Colorado Latino Chamber of Commerce and Ken Salazar, attorney general and highest-ranking Democratic official in the state," said Jeanne Allen, president of the Washington-based Center for Education Reform.

School-choice advocates applauded the flurry of state legislative activity to provide options beyond the traditional mandatory public school system, particularly for low-income families whose children are locked in failing schools. "We should be worried about the child first, and we need to redefine public education around the child as the ultimate beneficiary, so whatever we have in place — a traditional public school district, a charter school, a private school — all of those ought to be part of the public education policies the state has," said Lisa Graham Keegan, chief executive officer of the reform-minded Education Leaders Council. Colorado's approval of the first statewide voucher program is a positive step, said Mrs. Keegan, whose Washington-based council includes current and former state superintendents of education, school board members and other education leaders. "It makes the world safer for this idea. Every time it passes, it becomes less of an anomaly, more in the mainstream, and it helps us to redefine public education around kids," she said.

In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, and leaders of both houses of the Republican-controlled Legislature have teamed with Rep. Ron Wilson, a black Democratic lawmaker from Houston, to support a similar voucher bill. That bill targets 11 districts with enrollments of at least 40,000 whose students are mostly eligible for government-subsidized free and reduced-cost school lunches. In Louisiana, where the Legislature just opened its new session, Gov. Mike Foster, a Republican, has offered a pilot voucher plan to give students in low-performing schools the option to transfer to private schools that take part in skills tests required by the state.

The U.S. Supreme Court last June, in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, ruled that inclusion of religious schools in Ohio's state-enacted voucher program in Cleveland was not an unconstitutional establishment of religion under the First Amendment. The high court held that the legislation envisioned a comprehensive education system that permitted state support for parental choice of parochial schools as one option, along with traditional public schools and secular charter schools — either public or private. President Bush, a strong advocate of expanded school choice, included $75 million in his proposed fiscal year 2004 budget for pilot voucher programs throughout the country.

D.C. Mayor A. Anthony Williams and Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, both Democrats, oppose vouchers for the District, but Board of Education President Peggy Cooper Cafritz, previously an opponent, announced last weekend she supports the proposal. Mrs. Cafritz called on D.C. leaders to accept the federally proposed voucher or scholarship program for children in poorly performing public schools, saying she believed some version of administration-backed legislation in Congress was certain to pass.