Pro Choice for Parents

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 9, 1998 | by Valerie Richardson

Coloradans will vote on Amendment 17, an initiative that would give parents $2,500 in tax credits to offset the costs of private-school tuitions.

She isn't thrilled with the plaid uniforms, but Kinyata Fulton likes almost everything else about Union Baptist Excel Institute, the private school she began attending two years ago when her mother pulled her out of the Denver public system.

"There's more one-on-one with the teachers," says the 13-year-old eighth-grader with a knack for math. "The work is harder; they expect more of you. At first I didn't want to come here, but I like it now."

But Kinyata will graduate in the spring, and her mother, Yolanda Fulton, isn't sure she can swing the tuition at the area's more expensive private high schools on her nurse's aide's salary. Her hopes rest on the passage of Amendment 17, an initiative on the Nov. 3 Colorado ballot that would give parents a tax credit of up to $2,500 per year to offset the cost of private schools, even religious ones.

"The hardest thing for a parent is to put your child in private school and not know if you're going to be able to keep them there," says Fulton. "But if I knew I had $2,500 a year, then I would not have to worry. I know I could come up with the rest."

Voters in Colorado and across the nation can expect to hear more such stories as the fight over Amendment 17 heats up. The only school-choice measure on any state ballot this year, the proposal has become ground zero in the war over public education.

On one side, the National Education Association argues that the initiative is poorly written, unduly complex and harmful to public schools. So far, the teachers union has defeated every school-choice measure to appear on a state ballot.

On the other, a coalition of lower-income parents and conservative intellectuals -- notably Steve Schuck, a wealthy Colorado Springs developer -- characterize Amendment 17 as a cure for underperforming public schools. They have one big advantage: The state's first-ever Colorado Assessment Test, released last year, sent educators scrambling to explain why 40 percent of state fourth-graders scored below proficiency in reading.

Colorado voters rejected a similar proposal in 1992, but Schuck, head of Coloradans for School Choice for All Kids Inc., thinks satisfaction with the public system is dropping. This year's campaign is driven by parents, not "a bunch of us on the right."

Without question, Amendment 17 is the first of its kind. As written, the proposal would allow $5,000 in state funding per pupil to follow any student who leaves public school. The money would go into a state-run Educational Opportunity Fund, to be disbursed to private-school parents according to a five-tier priority system. Parents who pull their children out of low-performing schools would be the first in line for a tax credit.

Schuck admits that the fund could run dry if too few students leave the public schools. In a state without a strong private-school tradition -- 92 percent of Colorado students are enrolled in the public system -- opponents predict the amendment will benefit very few.

"There are people who want to use poor families to provide tax benefits to wealthier families" argues Deb Fallin, spokeswoman for Coloradans for Public Schools. She wants to strengthen, not weaken, the public schools. Funding that follows a student out of a public school would only mean staff cuts and increased class sizes, says Fallin.

As for the contention that the measure will force public schools to improve by competing for students, Fallin maintains that "education is not a competitive sport." Educators "are not looking over their shoulders saying, `Oh, that school's children are doing better.' Competition isn't a part of the education culture in public or private schools."

But skeptics fail to grasp the deep dissatisfaction with public schools, according to Vivian Wilson, principal of Union Baptist, where admission is competitive despite its location in the crime-ridden Park Hill neighborhood. If the money is available, she says, parents will flock to private schools -- and create their own when those are full. "We've found certainly a lot of children disenfranchised from the system and yet they can't leave," says Wilson. "If they'd had the financial means, they'd have left long ago."

RELATED ARTICLE: NEA Uncovers Plot by `Far Right'

The nation's most powerful teachers union claims an extensive network of "far-right" groups is attempting to undermine public education and the political power of organized labor.

The 2.4 million-member National Education Association outlines "a state-by-state assault on public education" in a report called "The Real Story Behind `Paycheck Protection'--The Hidden Link Between Anti-Public Education Initiatives: An Anatomy of the Far Right."

The report describes a nationwide network of organizations and activists that NEA Executive Director Don Cameron says has been "very effective" in advancing conservative causes. It lists dozens of individuals, including Wal-Mart heir John Walton, conservative philanthropist Richard Mellon Scaife and retired insurance executive J. Patrick Rooney, as well as think tanks such as the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation.