TOUGH CHOICES:

They Choose or We Lose: Parents are panicking about proposals to change how students are assigned to public schools in Seattle. Could this transform the city? (Nina Shapiro, 2/15/05, Seattle Weekly)

According to plan, Maria Gutierrez is supposed to be filling out a Seattle Public Schools application to enroll her daughter in kindergarten next year. Now the Lake City mom doesn't know what to do. The school district has announced that to save on transportation costs, it is considering drastically reducing or eliminating the choice system that allows parents to pick from schools throughout the city. "We bought our house in Seattle specifically because we believed we could choose a school," says Gutierrez, who might have moved instead into the Shoreline or Eastside districts. She views the nearby school to which she would likely be assigned if choice were eliminated, Olympic Hills, as far less attractive than some of the schools she has been considering a little to her south. "It doesn't have a music teacher," she says of Olympic Hills. "It doesn't have an after-school art program. It doesn't have a language program. It doesn't have a PTA that raises $200,000 a year."

Stressed by the uncertainty, she recently called the Shoreline district to find out about getting a boundary waiver that would allow her child to go there. Similarly concerned, many of her friends are applying to private schools. She calls what's going on "fright flight."

The backlash has begun. The school district isn't contemplating making any changes to its choice system until the 2006–07 school year. With the district kicking off community forums on the issue early this month, the scale of potential changes isn't widely understood. But already there is a palpable sense of panic among parents, compounded by a range of other cuts the district is contemplating in the face of a financial crisis, including closure of numerous schools.

The looming school closings have garnered most of the publicity, but the possible scrapping of the choice system is equally if not more momentous. "It's not just tweaking," says longtime schools activist Melissa Westbrook. "It would change the landscape of how we do things." It could not only affect enrollment in the Seattle Public Schools, prompting some to flee to suburban and private schools, it could alter the composition of the city, worsening economic and racial stratification. You can bet that if their kids could only go to one neighborhood school, parents with means would make darn sure that they moved into a neighborhood with a good school.

Taft plans to expand school vouchers: Private schools would benefit; public education gets little boost (Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 10, 2005)

Gov. Bob Taft will call for expanding school vouchers beyond Cleveland by offering them to 2,600 students who attend public schools with persistently failing test scores.

Taft will propose $9 million for vouchers -- and call for increasing the annual value of a voucher from $3,000 to $3,500 -- when he unveils his final two-year budget as governor at a news conference today.

Dubbed the Limited Ohio Choice Scholarship, the plan calls for the state to make vouchers available in the second year of the budget to students in schools that fail to meet state proficiency standards in math and reading three years in a row.

Education advocates briefed on the proposal said students at 71 schools would be eligible if the plan were in place today.

Republicans who control the General Assembly are expected to embrace the plan. Lawmakers have until June 30 to pass Taft's budget, their own or a compromise.

Don't let fear of vouchers halt Perdue plan (Joseph M. Knippenberg, , February 16, 2005, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Much of the opposition to Gov. Sonny Perdue's proposed Faith and Family Services Amendment (Senate Resolution 49) stems from belief that, if approved by the voters in 2006, it will remove a constitutional barrier to educational vouchers. After all, the current state constitution prohibits direct or indirect aid to "any church, sect, cult, or religious denomination, or any sectarian institution."

Well, folks, I've got news for you. We already have vouchers in Georgia. The HOPE scholarship and Georgia Tuition Equalization Grant programs provide vouchers to students attending public, private non-sectarian, and church-affiliated colleges and universities. And while the lottery-funded pre-k program isn't exactly a voucher program, it operates in an analogous manner and pays for slots at church-sponsored pre-schools.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 21, 2005 12:05 PM