CHOOSING THE THIRD WAY:

Vouchers, Legal and Logical (AVI SHAFRAN, February 4, 2008, NY Sun)

There are three distinct ways to look at school vouchers.

One is to regard them as a bogeyman threatening to destroy the American public educational system and undermine the sublime values that system instills in its students. Call that the "teachers unions" approach.

The second is to regard them as a lifeline for poor parents, a means of allowing those without means to provide their children a chance to escape failing public schools.

That was President Bush's approach in his recent State of the Union address, wherein he lauded the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program Congress approved at the beginning of 2004. That enactment permitted more than 2,600 of the poorest children in Washington, previously enrolled in D.C.'s poorly performing public schools, to transfer to nonpublic schools, including religious ones, of their parents' choice.

The president went on to propose a "Pell Grants for Kids" initiative, intended to help children "trapped in failing public schools" attend private and religious schools, presumably along the lines of the District of Columbia program.

But the reference to Pell Grants, which provide need-based grants to low-income students for postsecondary education, was puzzling. Because the Pell Grant model applied to younger students would be a reflection of the third way of approaching school vouchers.