Circuit Court rules against religious school vouchers in Maine

October 25, 2004... A federal appeals court ruled today that the state of Maine does not have to provide publicly funded vouchers to parents who want to send their children to religious schools.
The U.S Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld a state law that limits participation in the state's “tuitioning out” program to public and nonsectarian private schools. The National Education Association (NEA) filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the court to reject the plaintiffs' claim that the state has to pay for religious education. “This is another important legal victory for children and public education,” said NEA President Reg Weaver. “The federal courts, the Florida Supreme Court and the Colorado Supreme Court have all established that there are solid legal barriers to vouchers.”
In August, the Florida First District Court of Appeal ruled that the state constitution prohibits direct or indirect public funding for religious schools. That case is pending before the Florida Supreme Court.
In June, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the Colorado voucher plan interfered with local control.
The decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals in the Maine case hinges, in part, on a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Washington State that state-based prohibitions against public expenditures for religious education do not violate the right to free exercise of religion. “While Americans have the right to attend religious schools, if they wish, the courts have repeatedly ruled that the public should not be compelled to subsidize that decision,” Weaver said. Weaver said that parents, teachers, and others who work in public schools are concerned that private school tuition vouchers are a divisive and expensive diversion from the real issues in education.
“Consistently, Americans want investments in what they know will make a difference for their children – quality teachers, small classes and up-to-date books and materials,” Weaver said. “And consistently, they want those investments made where their children attend school – their neighborhood public schools.”
CONTACT: Michael Pons, NEA Public Relations 202-822-7595 or Anjetta McQueen, NEA Public Relations 202-822-7251

.Vouchers for education? too extreme for Delaware

Financing private or parochial schools through public, tax-payer funds is what folks are today calling private school vouchers. The majority of Americans - and Delawareans - oppose them as a way to improve public schools. They see other efforts, such as smaller class sizes, as efforts that work to improve teaching and learning.

The concept of vouchers is not new. In 1955, Milton Friedman, an economist, proposed vouchers to make public schools more efficient through competition with private and religious schools, alleging that the monopoly public schools held on education made them inefficient fiscally and educationally. At the same time, he acknowledged the potential of voucher programs to isolate students by race and income. Almost half a century later, these concepts remain at the core of voucher debate and research.

Other than an isolated federally-funded voucher experiment in the early 1970s in an elementary school district in Alum Rock, California, which was abandoned after three years, there was no testing ground in the United States for Friedman's theories until 1990 when Wisconsin enacted the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, allowing a small number of poor students in the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) to attend private schools via tuition vouchers. The state also funded a yearly independent evaluation, conducted by John Witte of the University of Milwaukee at Wisconsin. These yearly evaluations would continue for five years until funding for them, but not the voucher program, was cut by the state.

Over that time period, Witte's research consistently found no meaningful difference in the academic performance of voucher students and comparable MPS students.

In August 1996, the voucher research wars began with the release of a re-analysis of the Milwaukee voucher program data by Paul Peterson of Harvard and co-authors to the Wall Street Journal. Unlike Witte's annual evaluation conducted under state auspices, Peterson's research was underwritten by various foundations, some with strong ideological biases toward vouchers and against public education and labor unions. Breaking with academic research norms, Peterson released the results to the press before any peer review had taken place. As a result, many of the questionable statistical techniques used to reach results that indicated a positive effect of vouchers on students' reading and mathematics scores went unchallenged.

In addition, Peterson's research attacked not only Witte's research, but also Witte's integrity as a researcher. A 1997 NEA Research publication, "The School Voucher Experiment in Milwaukee: Success or Failure?" compared the research of Witte and Peterson and others.

In 1995, the Ohio legislature enacted a voucher program, similar in nature to that of Milwaukee, for the Cleveland Public Schools. See below for the latest news on efforts to stop this program..

The two annual evaluations available (1996-97 and 1997-98) show, overall, no real academic achievement advantage for vouchers students. Not surprisingly, Peterson and coauthors undertook a re-analysis of the Cleveland data and found positive results similar to those of Milwaukee, again using research methods not generally considered acceptable in academic research.

In 1999, Florida passed the first statewide voucher program, allowing students in public schools judged by the state to be "failing" to obtain vouchers for private and religious schools. No funding was included in the legislation for evaluation of the program.

Smaller Classes and Educational Vouchers: A Research Update 1999 by Alex Molnar is based upon an update of the 1998 Smaller Classes--Not Vouchers--Increase Student Achievement, and provides an excellent summary, comparing voucher and small class size research in layperson's language. While it is important for peer-reviewed research that uses generally accepted research methods to continue on existing voucher programs, this new generation of research comparing effective reforms with vouchers is promising.

A less well known area of voucher research lies with the study of the effect of voucher-like programs in other countries, such as those in South American countries like Chile and Venezuela, and European countries, such as the United Kingdom and Sweden. Martin Carnoy of Stanford University is perhaps the best known researcher in this area, and his research reveals troubling outcomes for these programs, some of which have been in place for over a decade.

Finally, it should be noted that the heated debate in voucher research has spawned two university research centers that examine and conduct voucher research and maintain Web sites where their reports and other materials can be accessed. The first is the Education Policy Project of the Center for Education Reform, Analysis and Innovation, the creation of Alex Molnar of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Second is the Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, the creation of Henry M. Levin of Teachers College, Columbia University.

Other useful voucher research links:

Center on Education Policy Report on School Voucher Research

A Review of the Research by Alex Molnar

Parental Choice Program - February 2000 Update by the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau

Voucher Update - September 10, 2001

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to announce soon whether it will take the Cleveland Voucher Case

PDK poll: voucher support declining, public school support growing

The majority of Americans surveyed give their public schools an "A" or "B" grade. A whopping 71 percent favor "strengthening the public system" over the 27 percent who support using public money for tuition vouchers at private and religious schools. The poll also shows strong support for efforts to work within the existing public school system for reform: 72 percent of those surveyed want reforms to emphasize the existing system of public schools, while just 24 percent want to find an alternative.

Voucher proponents look to Black Alliance to help

Conservative state legislators gathering for the summer meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) got an earful from proponents of vouchers and tuition tax credits. Representatives from the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation, American Education Reform Council, and Center for Education Reform were among those reiterating the movement's strategy that took hold after major losses of voucher initiatives in California and Michigan. Their advice: forget ballot initiatives, target inner-city parents, and recruit African-American parents and leaders to force change on school systems.

The Black Alliance for Educational Options, which plans to move from Milwaukee to Washington, D.C., is still being touted as the best messenger for conservatives promoting taxpayer-funded tuition programs. ALEC's Education Task Force reviewed plans by the Center for Education Reform to rank Charter Schools across the country and keep track of NEA and AFT opposition to charter school measures in the states. The Task Force also approved a resolution promoting the "universal tuition tax credit" legislation in the states: such legislation would provide tax credits to individuals or businesses contributing to private scholarship programs. ALEC will share model legislation with members to encourage tax credits similar to those adopted this year in Florida and Pennsylvania. Conservatives increasingly are arguing that the credits are an easier sell than vouchers.

Faith-based charities bill eyed for impact on vouchers
Legislation passed by the House to advance President Bush's faith-based charities initiative gives Cabinet secretaries authority to provide vouchers to welfare recipients. The measure lets agency heads convert some or all of the money in ten domestic programs to vouchers or certificates that would let recipients choose where they receive services. Critics fear the provision could open the door to a school voucher program. Supporters say distributing assistance through vouchers helps avoid church-state issues when dealing with religious groups. Meanwhile, Bush efforts to promote the faith-based initiatives hit a bump. The director of Bush's faith-based program, John Dilulio of the conservative Manhattan Institute, is resigning from the position.

Facts and figures ... The Education Department released its first in-depth report on home-schooling, reporting that an estimated 850,000 children are being taught at home. That's 850,000 children out of the 50 million schoolchildren in America. Although the number is higher than previous reports by the Education Department and U.S. Census Bureau, it's about half what some home-schooling groups have claimed in recent years. The conservative Home School Legal Defense Association says the Ed Department figure is too low and blames several factors, including the fact that parents who home-school their children might not have responded to the survey because they distrust the government ...

More numbers: The National Urban League's annual review says that nearly 60 percent of African-Americans oppose the use of tax money for vouchers for tuition at private schools.

News from other states ...

Gov. Ridge promotes PENNSYLVANIA tax credits for scholarships Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge helped light a fire under Pennsylvania's business community to generate money for private scholarships. In speeches and visits with business leaders, Ridge threw his weight behind a new tuition tax credit that provides tax breaks for contributions to programs that provide scholarships for public and private school. The state says that the first day the tax credit became available, businesses committed nearly $8 million. He settled for tax breaks to private scholarship programs as a consolation for regularly losing his voucher proposals.

Vouchers for disabled students expected to attract 4,000 in FLORIDA
Florida's voucher program for disabled students is expected to quadruple in size this year, to some 4,000 children. With about 1,000 children participating last year, the program quickly eclipsed the state's voucher program for children in low-performing schools. Legislators broadened the program this year to include more children, making up to 350,000 students eligible for the tuition aid. Florida officials believe the program for disabled students will end up being the second-largest voucher program in the country, behind Milwaukee.

LOUISIANA pre-school vouchers need more time

A New Orleans program that provides state-financed vouchers for children attending private pre-schools has been hampered with problems. State officials say they hope to have children assigned to schools by Oct. 1, but that it may take longer. The program is intended to provide vouchers for up to 600 4-year-olds to attend private pre-schools. Initially, the program targeted children attending Catholic pre-schools, but it has been expanded to include any private school approved by the state education department. The governor's office worked out a deal to pay Catholic Charities of New Orleans $35,000 to coordinate the program and publicize it to other schools. The American Civil Liberties Union says it's considering a legal challenge to the program it calls a "voucher scheme."

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