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October 10, 2005
State voucher roundup
While Congress lets vouchers bog down school relief efforts, here's a quick look at voucher news elsewhere:
Voucher advocates in Utah made a lot of noise last year about the need for a special education voucher program, eventually getting enough state lawmakers to agree. But this Education Week article indicates that only a third of the money allocated for the voucher program has been claimed. Despite the lack of takers so far, the state's public schools are still being shorted $900,000 to pay for the program, including the Box Elder school district even though none of its students have claimed a voucher.
The reason for the lack of interest? The head of the state's pro-voucher advocacy group says parents just don't know about the program yet. Which begs the question: if there really had been a huge groundswell of parents pushing for vouchers, wouldn't they know the program existed? We have to wonder whether Utah's voucher campaign was another case of manufacturing a grassroots movement.
Meantime, Florida's voucher fiascoes continue unabated. The Palm Beach Post reports that six weeks into the school year, the state is unaware which students are using corporate tax credit vouchers to attend private and religious schools, or which schools they are attending. Enrollment in the state's voucher programs has declined this year.
The Post also reveals, in this story, that many of Florida's voucher schools, which do not have to follow the state's academic standards despite receiving taxpayer dollars, teach creationism and that evolution is false.
Finally, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin education officials have withheld payments to 10 voucher schools, mostly because the schools did not submit financial reports or student enrollment lists on time. Details from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Posted October 10, 2005 2:30 PM
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