May 19, 1999
Voucher discussion heats
up with scholarship awards
___WASHINGTON (RNS)-- The nation's largest private scholarship program last month awarded 40,000 low-income children with four-year scholarships to private and religious elementary and junior high schools across the nation and immediately sparked a debate on private and public schools and the role of vouchers in education.
___"It is time to start seeking a good education wherever it can be found," said Children's Scholarship Foundation Chairman Ted Forstmann at the April 21 award ceremony in New York. The scholarships are worth a total of over $160 million.
___But the awards were criticized as ineffectual by a liberal church-state watchdog group which tracks education issues. According to People for the American Way, real gains in education will occur only by strengthening public schools.
___People for the American Way also released a report accusing the Children's Scholarship Fund of ulterior motives behind the charity's ostensibly philanthropic aims and said despite the $160 million in awards, the group was in reality mostly a public relations machine working to further political and financial interests related to school voucher programs.
___"The bottom line is this--the private voucher movement was designed exclusively as a political strategy. The purpose: to build pressure on elected officials to divert public funds into private schools," said President Carole Shields.
___To Shields, efforts by the Children's Scholarship Fund divert attention and energy from "proven" reforms in public education.
___The conflict underscores a growing national debate over how to improve education in the public schools. School vouchers, or certificates that can be spent at public or private schools--including religious schools--have been proposed as one solution. Publicly funded pilot voucher programs are currently underway--and under court challenge--in Milwaukee, Wis., and Cleveland, Ohio.
___Political and religious conservatives, favoring competition and eager to gain funding for religious schools, traditionally have favored vouchers. Liberals and moderates, meanwhile, generally consider vouchers a faulty solution, believing they drain much-needed tax money away from public schools.
___But the debate extends beyond the academic as groups from teachers unions to investors have a financial stake in the outcome. The fact that private-sector investors stand to gain billions from privatization has not been lost on People for the American Way.
___In its report, the group accused top Children's Scholarship Foundation officials and financial backers who have investments in private schools with conflicts of interest.
___Children's Scholarship Fund did not to respond to the charges and did not return calls requesting an interview.
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