A Ticket to Private School.

The idea is catching on: if public schools are failing, then give kids 'vouchers' for a private education. The debate in the campaign, in the courts--and in families.

Prime time at the Johnson house. Time for "7th Heaven" on the WB. But Mom is home, and the kids know what that means: don't even think about TV until the homework is done. Brandon has polynomials to divide for pre-algebra. Tony has to read up on mollusks for science class. And Jessica has to change out of her basketball gear and hit the Spanish books. "In public school they don't even have to bring books home, and we get three assignments a night," grumbles Tony, 13, across the dining-room table. Mom comes back without a beat. "That's exactly why you're not in public school."

Valerie Johnson shoots a smile across the table. But her mistrust of the public system is dead serious. As a child she saw her brothers’ struggle in a school that she says belittled and ignored them. One was murdered at 19. She sees even greater peril for her own children. Test scores and graduation rates in her inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood are among the lowest in the city.

Valery Johnson and her husband, Robert, a garbage collector, have latched onto a controversial alternative, a program that uses public money to help low-income families send their children to private schools. The Johnsons receive «vouchers» that cover the full cost of the roughly $ 3000 a year, per child, they send their kids to Roman Catholic schools. The decade-old Milwaukee voucher program, which now reaches 8000 kids, was followed by a similar program in Cleveland in 1995. Vermont and Main also have programs.

Voucher experiments are catching the attention of presidential candidates as well as educators. Al Gore opposes them as a drain on the public -school system. George W. Bush advocates vouchers for poor kids in failing schools. Both are sensitive to political consideration: the teacher unions, mainstays of the democratic party, regard vouchers as a threat to their livelihoods, while some conservative Republicans see vouchers as a way to fund religious schools. Meanwhile the programs are under fierce attack, blocked by lawsuits in the five states that have tried in various ways to experiment with the idea.

One of the most striking contrasts between voucher schools and the public schools is the degree of flexibility the private ones have in tailoring curricula and setting high expectations. A few fly-by-night educators have been able to collect public funds just by hanging a shingle. Three of the 91 participating schools in Milwaukee were recently found to have no academic accreditation and no standardized tests to measure student progress. In Cleveland`s voucher program, three schools were shut down for similar violations. One school, which had a convicted killer on staff was found guilty of padding voucher enrollment numbers to bilk the state for money.

The defenders of school vouchers argue that the market-place will work quickly to weed out the worst offenders. Other complaints are tougher to answer. Roughly a quarter of the voucher percipients in Cleveland and nearly a third of those in Milwaukee, including the Johnsons, were already enrolled in private schools, with the help of scholarships and grants. More important, voucher opponents warn that ardent supporters will be happy only when every public-school student, regardless of income level, qualifies for vouchers. If that happens, they say, families that can afford to pad the vouchers with their own money will have the better schools, and poor students once again will be left behind.

Still, even the most vehement opponents concede one fact: vouchers have scared some public schools into action. The Hartford Avenue School, a once high- achieving school on Milwaukee`s middle-class east side, spiraled into chaos through the `80s and `90s. White parents yanked their kids out as black students were bused in. Good teachers left. Performance plummeted. At its worst point the school went through three principals in three years. The district threatened to shut it down.

In the 1998 the district decided to give the school one last shot. Cynthia Ellwood, a former district administrator, was put in charge. She overhauled the teaching staff and revamped the curriculum, creating a magnet school focusing on urban issues and social justice. Young teachers are competing to work in the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school, and there is a waiting list of students. «The debate has loosened some of the chains that the central office and unions have traditionally imposed upon us», concedes Ellwood. «We are freer to do things we’ve been pushing to do for years.»

Ultimately, Valerie Johnson would like to see public schools rise to the challenge. But while her children are young, she can’t afford to wait. «I’m not anti public school. I’m anti bad school. To have my children go to a good neighborhood public school would be my ultimate dream.» The political and legal wrangling will go on. Meanwhile, the Johnson rids have homework to do.

Kim Lourieie

/From Newsweek, Dec 21, 2005/

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