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Class warfare?: The lawsuit over school vouchers in Colorado is following a familiar pattern: Better-off suburban parents who are happy with their children's public schools oppose poorer parents who want options (Lynn Vincent, 8/23/03, World)

Colorado Governor Bill Owens in April 2003 signed a bill that created the first publicly funded school-voucher plan since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Cleveland Scholarship Program last year. In May, the Colorado Education Association filed suit with a Denver district court to block the program, naming Gov. Owens as defendant. Now that action is winding its way through side motions. The main case may be heard as early as this fall.

The Colorado suit is like others brought by teachers unions against school-choice programs that dare to challenge the public-school monopoly. The union plaintiffs are joined by liberal interest groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and People for the American Way, which fight legislatures that redirect public-education dollars when public schools fail to educate kids. The Institute for Justice, a conservative legal group that argued for Cleveland's voucher program before the U.S. high court, is defending COCP.

This suit, like other school-choice legal battles, also names individual families as plaintiffs and defendants--12 who want vouchers and five who don't. (More individual plaintiffs claim injury as taxpaying parents, but they often represent interest or faith groups. WORLD focused on the 17 families who filed on behalf of their minor children.)

Parties on each side of the suit have accused their opponents of using these families to peddle their agendas. But a closer look at six of the families blows that myth--and reveals that citizens on each side are separated not only by a wide economic gulf, but also by deeply held differences over proper public spending and the meaning of educational opportunity. [...]

According to 2000 census data, the average of median household incomes in zip codes where pro-voucher families live is $33,337 compared with $51,954 for families who don't want vouchers. Is the lawsuit, then, a battle between the "haves" and the "have-nots"? [...]

Plaintiff parent Alan DeLollis doesn't believe any publicly funded private education program will—or should—work: If parents choose education alternatives outside of public education, he said, that's their privilege and their right. "But they shouldn't be using public funds."

A senior producer for the City of Denver's Internet and television department, Mr. DeLollis is married to a public-school elementary teacher, Deborah Brennan. The couple lives off Denver's "Antique Row" in Platt Park, a trendy urban area where some homebuyers are fixing up houses built between 1910 and 1940. The DeLollises also own a mountain cabin in Fairplay, Colo.

Cameron DeLollis, 14, will start high school this year, majoring in cinematography at Denver School of the Arts (DSA), a public magnet school. Eleven percent of DSA students are low-income; 2003 CSAP test scores are high in reading and writing (75 to 95 percent of sixth- through 10th-graders scored at or above proficient), and lower in math (44 to 65 percent of students scored at or above proficient.)

Asked how long parents of children in failing public schools should wait for improvement before agitating for change, Mr. DeLollis remained firm in his support of public education: "I don't think that's a decision we should make. As a social contract, [citizens] have agreed to fund a public-school system and that's what we should do."

Meanwhile, Angelia Teague believes the social contract has failed her daughters. To anti-voucher parents, she had this to say: "I want what's best for my children just like you. I pay taxes, just like you. Why can't I use my tax money to prepare my children for their future? Knowledge can take my children places they otherwise wouldn't be able to go."

This is why vouchers aren't likely to be adopted to the degree that they should be. Republican elected officials with their well-to-do white constituencies just aren't going to follow their ideology at the expense of voter support. And since the Democrats are a wholly owned subsidiary of the Labor movement--and teachers' unions are afraid of a free market in education--they're not going to push the programs. Besides, it's only poor kids who end up being screwed and it's not like they're a powerful lobby or voting bloc. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 15, 2003 5:32 PM