By a vote of 209-208, the House of Representatives narrowly passed the highly publicized D.C. voucher program Tuesday night, sending to the Senate for approval a bill that would allocate $10 million in private tuition grants for over 1,300 low-income students.
Sponsored by Rep. Tom Davis, III, R - Va., the five-year pilot program would be the nation's first federally-funded voucher initiative. Starting next year, the legislation authorizes up to $7,500 for each child whose family earns up to 185 percent of the poverty limit.
Supporters of the bill, ranging from District Mayor Anthony Williams to Sen. Diane Feinstein, D - Ca., contend that D.C. vouchers would raise academic standards by bringing competition to a failing public school system.
"The District of Columbia spends over $10,000 per student," said Mary Kayne Heinze, spokesperson for the Center for Education Reform. "Because D.C. students have been performing so poorly in every measure out there, infusing more money into the system is clearly not the answer."
Opponents of the bill, however, maintain that the D.C. public school system can be reformed through increased funding and programs.
"There is really no need for these showy but faddish schemes," said Janet Bass, spokesperson for the American Federation of Teachers. "In poll after poll, Americans say they want their public schools improved -- they don't want vouchers."
This is not the first time D.C. has hosted the school choice debate. In 1997, President Clinton vetoed similar legislation; five years later, the House opted to exclude vouchers from the No Child Left Behind Act.
Heinze, who criticized politicians and teachers unions for "playing politics with children's futures," praised the D.C. proposal as a parental check on public schools.
"A voucher program is a safeguard for parents," she said. "They know if the school is being responsive to their concerns."
Bass, on the other hand, questioned how private schools would be regulated under the D.C. voucher program.
"There is going to be no accountability," she said. "It's all up in the air and open."
Directed typically at inner city public school systems, school choice has fostered a debate over racial and socioeconomic implications.
David Almasi, director of Project 21, the National Center for Public Policy Research's initiative to promote the views of African Americans, rejected the notion that vouchers would drain resources from public schools.
"If a school is living up to the standards that a community sets for it, there should be no problem," he said, pointing out that many opponents of school choice send their children to private schools. "But, if a school is bad, there should be a way for the parents to seek alternatives."
Almasi offered an economic model to demonstrate the impact of competition on the public school system.
"If there's a Burger King and a McDonald's standing next to each other and the McDonald's treats you poorly, you have the option to go to Burger King or somewhere else," he said. "You don't have that option with school systems."
Addressing supposed benefits of school choice for low-income, minority children, Bass said the program would not function as intended when in practice, as private schools would not be required to accept all students choosing to apply using vouchers.
"There will not be vouchers available for schools like Sidwell Friends," she said, referring to a prestigious D.C. private school. "They will not accept those children."
The first state voucher initiative dates back to 1990, when Wisconsin passed the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, allowing low-income students to use their share of state education funds to attend a non-sectarian private school. Five years later, Ohio approved its Scholarship and Tutoring Program, which resulted in last summer's U.S. Supreme Court decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris that rendered the program constitutional.
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