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February 26, 1999/10 Adar 5759, Vol. 51, No. 22
Battle lines forming on voucher bill
MICHELLE ACKERMAN
Staff Writer
Local Jewish civil-rights activists are alarmed about state legislation currently making its way through the Arizona House of Representatives that would allow low-income parents to receive tuition vouchers to send their children to private schools.
Under House Bill 2279, the state would pay whatever tuition a private school charges or $5,000 per child, whichever is less. Students who are currently eligible for the federal free lunch program would also be eligible for vouchers.
Supporters of the proposal claim it will expand parental choice, but civil-rights activists say it violates the principle of the separation of church and state by providing public money for use at religious schools.
"I think what's happening, in terms of rhetoric, is that things are being termed a matter of choice. But the fact is that it is public money that is being used, whether it stops in the parents' home first or a school-tax organization," said Eleanor Eisenberg, director of the Arizona Civil Liberties Union. "It's money that is either public money or would have been public money except for the fact that it is taking this little digression, and ultimately it's going to end up supporting religious education at public expense."
A recent publication of the Anti-Defamation League, titled "School Vouchers: The Wrong Choice For Public Education," states that an estimated 80 percent of the money handed out in vouchers would be used in schools that include religious training in their curricula. Joel Breshin, regional director of the ADL, said that "in most such schools, religion permeates the classroom, the lunchroom, even the football practice field."
But Rabbi Zalman Levertov, dean of Phoenix Preparatory Community High School and a supporter of vouchers, noted that the money often helps pay for secular activities, academics or counseling at a school.
Also upsetting anti-voucher activists is the fear that diverting public funding to religious schools would cause the state's public schools, which currently rank 48th in spending per pupil, to suffer. They claim that vouchers simply divert attention from the real mission at hand - improving the public schools.
John Wright, vice president of the Arizona Education Association, which represents teachers, said he is appalled by voucher proposals. "I think that it is an absolute neglect, and it's an abdication of responsibility for the schools we do have to say that, if schools are failing, or if there are problems, we need to take students somewhere else instead of addressing the schools."
Voucher supporters, including Lisa Graham Keegan, state superintendent of public instruction, claim they are addressing the problem, and that the vouchers will actually improve public education by encouraging public schools to be more competitive.
To this, Wright responded, "When you want to improve your competitiveness, you invest in your system; you don't suck money out of it."
However, Levertov said it's unfair that parents of private-school students have to pay twice.
"The Jewish community, as well as every American citizen, pays for (public school) education," he said, "and I think that we shouldn't be deprived (of benefiting from state funding because of) the fact that we send children (to) private school."
Rabbi David Rebibo, dean of Phoenix Hebrew Academy, agreed.
But not all religious or private school operators are in favor of the vouchers. Some, such as Bonnie Morris, director of education at the Solel School in Paradise Valley, are still on the fence.
Speaking as "a liberal from Boston," Morris said she "would frankly prefer to see public education dollars go to public education." Still, as a director of a Jewish school, she noted the vouchers would present the opportunity for many more students to consider private education.
"Every year more and more people are coming to us in need of tuition subsidies," Morris said. "There are parents who truly want the type of education the Solel School offers ... and we do not want to turn them away."
The newly proposed legislation comes on the heels of a law approved by legislators in 1997 and upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court recently as constitutional, which provides direct tax credits of up to $500 for donations to private-school tuition organizations. HB 2279 is based on a similar Milwaukee, Wis., program that has been upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and on which the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to rule.
Wright contends that, based on the Arizona Supreme Court ruling in the tax credit case, the voucher initiative will never pass muster here. He said the majority opinion upheld the tax credit because it does not constitute a direct expenditure of public funds for religious or independent schools. The vouchers, he said, would.
In any case, Eisenberg said the proposal is serious enough to warrant a "statewide coalition effort to try and catch this train which is already on the track."
HB 2279 was scheduled to be heard by the House of Representatives Rules Committee on Thursday, March 3. If passed, it would then move to the House floor for a vote.
Arizona State University has scheduled a seminar to discuss school vouchers on May 1, from 10 a.m. to noon in the Payne Education Building, Room 164, Myrtle Avenue and 10th Street in Tempe.
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