Father's attempts to get Phila. school to stop the bullying of his first-grade son

October 20, 2011|By Jeff Gammage, Inquirer Staff Writer

At first, Gbahtuo Comgbaye, a West African immigrant, was more puzzled than worried when his 6-year-old son started coming home from school with bruises on his chest and neck.

His concern turned to alarm on a mid-September morning as he helped his child, Menduawor, get dressed for the day. The boy tearfully asked, "If my friends beat me up, and hurt me, and wanted to kill me, would you do something about it?"

The story that emerged: Menduawor, a slight, soft-spoken boy, was being routinely beaten by three bigger first-grade classmates at Patterson School in Southwest Philadelphia. They told him, "We don't like your name."

Philadelphia School District officials said Wednesday that they were extremely concerned about the allegations, and promised to launch an immediate and thorough inquiry.

Comgbaye described his growing horror as his son came home from school bruised and shaken day after day. He said that his pleas to the teacher and principal brought no relief and that a phone call and subsequent letter to the district superintendent got no response.

At the end of September, the boy was beaten so severely that his mother took him to the emergency room at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Hospital records show Menduawor was treated for chest and abdominal injuries, which physician Sarah Wood wrote were caused by blows from a person or object.

The family filed a police report shortly afterward.

Afraid for their son's safety, the Comgbayes have not sent Menduawor to school in two weeks, and pledge he will not return to Patterson. They said school administrators have called to warn them that the boy was being marked absent.

"We take the allegations very seriously," acting Superintendent Leroy Nunery II said in an interview. "We don't have any tolerance for anything on the order of bullying or student-on-student violence. ... Our eyes are on this."

Comgbaye, interviewed at the family home, said he could not believe this was happening to his son - not in a neighborhood school, not in the United States, not after fleeing war-torn Liberia.
As he spoke, his son came into the living room.

"They keep beating me up," he said. "They pushed me, and I was bleeding."

Comgbaye said the incidents occurred in the classroom, in the hallways, and outside the school. Sometimes, it would be a quick punch, he said. Other times, the three stronger boys, all African American, would circle Menduawor and taunt him as they kicked and punched, he said.

He described his son as a quiet and studious child who had no trouble during kindergarten at Patterson.

The school is at 70th Street and Buist Avenue, on the border of the Eastwick and Elmwood neighborhoods, an area where there has been tension between African Americans and African immigrants. Members of the West African community said some African Americans have regarded the growing African-born population as an economic threat.

Refugees have been propelled here by political unrest, civil war, and genocide.

Comgbaye said that after Sept. 12, when his son began telling him about the beatings, other odd events suddenly made sense: One day, he had gone to pick up his son at school, and the boy ran to the car, jumped inside - and immediately wet himself. The child said he was afraid to go to the bathroom at school.

Comgbaye, referring to a file of letters and notes, said that once he realized what was happening, he wrote to the boy's teacher and asked for help. She responded, according to a copy of the note, "I will check this out. Thank you for writing to me! I appreciate that."

Comgbaye said he heard nothing more from her.

He decided that he or his wife, Rachael, would have to meet their son every day at the end of school.
On Sept. 27, he said, he was walking his son away from the school, holding him by the hand, when a bigger boy ran up and knocked Menduawor to the ground, leaving him cut and crying.
The assailant quickly ran away into a crowd of students. Menduawor said it was one of the three bullies who had been beating him.

The next day, Comgbaye said, he phoned the superintendent's office. Comgbaye, who came to the United States as a refugee in 2001, said he didn't understand the intricacies of local government or know the name of the superintendent, but wanted to contact the person in charge. He said he explained his son's situation to a woman in the office.

That same day, he said, he and his wife went to see the Patterson principal, Kenneth Jessup. Comgbaye said the principal told him, "We know about this already," and promised to move the ringleader to another classroom.

Comgbaye left to attend class at Holy Family University, where he is working toward a nursing degree. Later that day, he phoned the principal and was assured that the main assailant had been moved and would have no contact with Menduawor, Comgbaye said.

But that very day, Comgbaye said, their son came home from school more beaten and brutalized than ever. He and his wife learned that the boy who had been moved from class had joined his two accomplices as school was let out, then kicked and punched Menduawor "like a football."

The next morning, when the child complained of continuing pain in his stomach area, Rachael Comgbaye took him to Children's. Comgbaye said he later took the hospital discharge papers to Jessup, the principal, who said, "Oh my God, did I separate the wrong one?"

"I said, 'I'm not sending him here anymore,' " Comgbaye said he told the principal.
Efforts to contact Jessup for this article were unsuccessful.

On Oct. 1, Comgbaye wrote a letter to the superintendent, explaining all that had occurred and asking that his son be transferred to a "safe school where he will be able to learn."

He wrote that his son would not return to Patterson and that he was seeking help not only for his boy, "but for every child that has been and could potentially be hurt from the hands of troubled kids in this school."

Comgbaye said he received no response.

Nunery said the district has closely tracked incoming calls and mail and has no record of receiving either one from Comgbaye. "Doesn't mean it didn't happen," he said, adding that the district was now scrutinizing its files.

District spokesman Fernando Gallard called the alleged abuse "very disturbing" and reiterated: "A full investigation will be conducted on every single allegation raised by the father."

He and Nunery confirmed that communications had occurred between the father and the principal and that the principal had moved a child out of the class.

Gallard said the school has called the parents multiple times to say the boy must return to class. However, if a safety threat is identified, he said, the child could transfer to a new school without penalty.

Comgbaye said he was not sure what to do next. It's not safe for his son to return to Patterson. But the longer the boy is away from school, the more the child comes to think that he's the problem, Comgbaye said.

"I'm very, very, very upset," he said. "I don't know whether the School District wants for someone to die."

Gov. Tom Corbett puts vouchers, charters as second priorities to Marcellus Shale drilling

BY JAN MURPHY AND CHARLES THOMPSON, The Patriot-News

This week, Gov. Tom Corbett makes his push to expand educational choices for students.
  

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett speaks during a tour of the Carpenters Training Center in Pittsburgh, Pa., Monday, Oct. 3, 2011. Corbett's plan for the state's natural gas boom would let counties impose a fee on drilling to help pay to regulate it and fix any environmental damage. Corbett included the fee as part of a broader plan released on Monday. (AP Photo/John Heller)

Corbett will unveil the first phase of his school reform agenda on Tuesday. He aims to see Pennsylvania join the growing list of states that offer taxpayer-funded vouchers to parents to send their children to a school of their choice.
  
The governor will make his pitch at Lincoln Charter School in York, a York School District building that was converted into a public charter school.
  
It’s a concept that the Corbett administration wants to see replicated. He wants to reform the state’s 14-year-old charter school law to increase the number of these self-managed public schools.
  
The governor also wants to expand the state’s tax credits program that provides for business-funded private school scholarships.
  
He is expected to outline his administration’s desire to have student achievement factored into teacher evaluations.
  
Public education advocates said the plan is wrong-headed.
  
“Any initiative that takes even more resources from public schools just doesn’t make sense,” Pennsylvania State Education Association spokesman David Broderic said. “After $860 million in cuts [to schools this year], the schools are struggling to keep operating programs that work for their students. Restoring these unprecedented budget cuts should be everyone’s priority.”
  
State Education Secretary Ronald Tomalis said he was not surprised to hear that PSEA’s top priority is putting more money into public schools.
  
Following a Friday visit to Susquenita High School in Perry County, Tomalis said the priority should be focused on the way the money already in the system is spent.
  
“It’s looking at investing that $26 billion now in a way that’s going to drive academic achievement here like it’s never driven it before and give every child the opportunity to go to the environment that does it best for them,” Tomalis said.
  
Last week, the governor said his school reforms are second on his priority list only to an impact fee on natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale. Here’s a closer look at his school reform agenda:

School choice

Corbett threw his support behind a school voucher plan in the spring that critics said would cost the state $1 billion over its first four years.
  
The big price tag gives his administration pause, observers said. It could lead to his call for a narrowed voucher plan that targets the bottom 5 percent of the worst-performing schools.
  
It remains to be seen if a plan like that can win a majority of votes in the House and Senate.
  
Some lawmakers want to see a broader voucher program; others don’t want to see one at all.
  
Skeptical lawmakers, including Republicans, worry about the cost of a voucher program. Others in districts with good schools don’t see it as a top priority.
  
But Dawn Chavous, executive director of Students First PA, a nonpartisan school choice advocacy group based in Philadelphia, said, “No one should be getting a good night’s sleep knowing there are kids in troubling situations that we can actually fix.”
  
She could accept a narrowed plan targeted to low-income families with children in the worst-performing schools. “So if this is a more targeted approach, I think that’s great,” Chavous said.
  
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association said a voucher program isn’t affordable or accountable to taxpayers. The PSBA and other critics said there aren’t mechanisms to ensure taxpayer dollars going to private schools are well spent.
  
Now the association cites a poll that shows vouchers may not be popular.
  
In a survey of 801 adults last month, the poll found that 65 percent said they strongly or somewhat opposed using state tax dollars for parents to send their children to a private school instead of a public school.
  
“While they may pull a few students out of these schools, the majority are left behind in underperforming schools that are now also underfunded. Instead, more effort should be focused on solutions to help the struggling schools so that all children can succeed,” said Steve Robinson, an association spokesman.

Charter school reform

The governor is expected to call for expanding the number of charter schools in Pennsylvania.
  
Charter schools serve over 90,000 students. The governor wants to remove some of the barriers stifling growth.
  
“We want to build upon the successful charter school law in Pennsylvania but learn from what other states have done,” Tomalis said.
  
The education department has endorsed giving the state the power to authorize and oversee charter schools, just as the state already does with cyberschools. Currently, only school boards can authorize a brick-and-mortar charter school and many have shown a reluctance to do so.
  
“If parents know best how schools perform for their children, it is unconscionable that a parent’s right to choose the best public school for their child be limited or rationed out by school districts,” Lawrence Jones, president of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, told the Senate Education Committee in August.
  
There’s also a push to allow universities to be charter authorizers as well.
  
The department also has called for allowing charters to operate more than one campus and allowing a district school to be converted to a charter school when more than 50 percent of the school’s parents petition the school board to make that change.
  
But Baruch Kintisch, policy advocacy director for the Philadelphia-based Education Law Center, suggests that the state ought to review the academic results of existing charter schools.
  
“There are many charter schools and a high percentage of cyber charters that are failing and have unacceptably low outcomes for their students,” he said.
  
Until the state looks at why that is happening, it “is not in a position to adopt a system that would greatly expand the current system,” he said.
  
Kintisch said school boards are in a better position than the state to know what’s best for local children.

Teacher evaluations

Tomalis, the education secretary, sees a problem in the current teacher evaluation system.
  
The system relies largely on subjective classroom observation and ranked virtually all public school teachers and principals as satisfactory in 2009-10.
  
At the same time, one in four students scored below grade-level in reading on state assessment tests, and one in three students fell below grade-level in math.
  
These results are a clear indication that the current evaluation system must be changed, Tomalis has said.
  
The department has been working on a new measuring system that would base 50 percent of an evaluation on student achievement and the other half on classroom observations and other criteria.
  
The Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, acknowledges the evaluation system can be improved. But the PSEA has clear thoughts on what an effective evaluation system would include.
  
Broderic, the union spokesman, said it should involve multiple measures of student achievement, including daily classroom activities and student performance on quizzes and tests, and not just scores from standardized tests.
  
“Pennsylvania public schools work to provide a well-rounded education for all Pennsylvania students,” Broderic said. “Evaluations of Pennsylvania teachers should be well-rounded as well.”

Tax credit

The administration also is expected to call for expanding the Education Improvement Tax Credit program.
  
The program provides tax credits to businesses that donate to private school scholarship funds and innovative public school programs.
  
This program is funded at $75 million. House Republican leaders would like to see it expanded to $200 million.
  
Observers said the administration, while supportive of increasing a tax credit program that is popular with businesses, is hesitant to boost the price tag that high.
  
Corbett said he wants to get his school reforms passed this fall so most, if not all, could be ready to go for the 2012-13 school year.
  
Terry Madonna, a Franklin & Marshall College political scientist, said passing all these initiatives in swift fashion this fall could be a tall order.
  
“That’s going to be very difficult to do,” Madonna said. “Every one of these proposals is complicated by the substance of them and by the content, and some of them are very controversial.”

Saving Catholic Education

Over 50 years, the U.S. Catholic school population has dropped by almost two-thirds.

By RICHARD RIORDAN

Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Catholic Education Foundation announced a campaign to raise $100 million for Catholic schools in our area.

Catholic education in the United States is in dire straits. A report from Loyola Marymount University in June found that Catholic schools continue to close even though they graduate 98% of their high school students and send almost all of them onto college. In the early 1960s, the U.S. had over 13,000 Catholic schools with 5.5 million students. Today there are 6,900 schools with two million students. In the Los Angeles area, enrollment has fallen by 20% over the past 10 years, to 80,000 students from 100,000. This trend is due not to lack of demand, but to the inability of parents to pay tuition.

The urban poor are more desperate than ever for Catholic education. Urban public schools have failed these families, graduating approximately 30% of Los Angeles high school students in four years. Catholic schools are their best hope—something I know from personal experience.

Related Video

Bill McGurn on the value of Catholic schools and why their enrollment is declining.

Catholic schools shaped my spiritual, intellectual and social growth. This included grammar school (where I got a very good education despite having 55 students in my classroom), high school and then college. I remember vividly my third-grade teacher reading to us for a half-hour every day. It started me on a lifelong love of reading. I remember the ethic of service the nuns and lay teachers instilled in me. I was taught that the poor were not to be pitied—they wanted only to be given the opportunity to succeed. And the fortunate had an obligation to help.

So why are Catholic schools the answer to our urban education woes? Aren't charter schools beginning to help this underserved population? Charter schools are an amazing development, and I've chaired the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools and the Inner City Education Foundation, both charter advocacy organizations. But not everyone will be able to attend charter schools because the capacity isn't there.

Charter schools are public schools that receive the same dollars as other public schools (in California, $7,500 per student). By contrast, Catholic schools rely on private contributions (averaging $4,000 per student) and tuition (averaging $2,500 per student) from some of our poorest families. In terms of graduation rates, only the very best charter schools in Los Angeles are on par with Catholic schools.

Catholic schools infuse beliefs, values and standards that children will carry all their lives. They provide a safe learning environment for those from high-crime neighborhoods as well as structure and a faith-based education. The schools create a sense of community and an expectation that every child will achieve his or her goals.

Many students in Catholic schools are not Catholic. As Catholic school teachers often say, "We provide this education not because the students are Catholic but because we are." Our faith calls us to it.

So how can we provide the gift of Catholic education to the thousands of struggling families who want it but could never scrape together an extra $2,000 or $3,000 a year? Of the 17,500 applications the Los Angeles Catholic Education Foundation received for financial aid last year, 17,000 qualified for a tuition award. But the foundation could afford to give awards to only 8,400 students. The average income level for a family of four who received tuition assistance last year was $21,500. We believe that if we increase our endowment by $100 million, we will be able to offer scholarships to all deserving children for decades to come.

In the years that I was mayor of Los Angeles, I was interested to find that some of the best people who worked for me had Catholic school experience. My fire and police chiefs were both Catholic school graduates. And I see significant numbers of Catholic school alums in a leadership course I teach at UCLA's business school.

Each of us, no matter what career we have followed, has an obligation to educate the next generation. The education needed for success in our world necessarily includes the basics of reading, writing and math. It must also include the ability to reason, to make good judgments, and to be responsible for our planet and all its peoples. These have been the fundamentals of our Catholic schools for over a century. We must guarantee they are here for generations to come.

Mr. Riordan, who was mayor of Los Angeles from 1993 to 2001, is the founding president of the Los Angeles Catholic Education Foundation.

The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

School districts hire special investigators to follow kids home in order to verify their true residences.

 By MICHEAL FLAHERTY

In case you needed further proof of the American education system's failings, especially in poor and minority communities, consider the latest crime to spread across the country: educational theft. That's the charge that has landed several parents, such as Ohio's Kelley Williams-Bolar, in jail this year.

An African-American mother of two, Ms. Williams-Bolar last year used her father's address to enroll her two daughters in a better public school outside of their neighborhood. After spending nine days behind bars charged with grand theft, the single mother was convicted of two felony counts. Not only did this stain her spotless record, but it threatened her ability to earn the teacher's license she had been working on.

Enlarge Image

AP Photo/Akron Beacon Journal

In January, Ohioan Kelley Williams-Bolar was sentenced to 10 days in jail, three years of probation, and 80 hours of community service for having her children attend schools outside her district. Gov. John Kasich reduced her sentence last month.

Ms. Williams-Bolar caught a break last month when Ohio Gov. John Kasich granted her clemency, reducing her charges to misdemeanors from felonies. His decision allows her to pursue her teacher's license, and it may provide hope to parents beyond the Buckeye State. In the last year, parents in Connecticut, Kentucky and Missouri have all been arrested—and await sentencing—for enrolling their children in better public schools outside of their districts.

These arrests represent two major forms of exasperation. First is that of parents whose children are zoned into failing public schools—they can't afford private schooling, they can't access school vouchers, and they haven't won or haven't even been able to enter a lottery for a better charter school. Then there's the exasperation of school officials finding it more and more difficult to deal with these boundary-hopping parents.

From California to Massachusetts, districts are hiring special investigators to follow children from school to their homes to determine their true residences and decide if they "belong" at high-achieving public schools. School districts in Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey all boasted recently about new address-verification programs designed to pull up their drawbridges and keep "illegal students" from entering their gates.

Other school districts use services like VerifyResidence.com, which provides "the latest in covert video technology and digital photographic equipment to photograph, videotape, and document" children going from their house to school. School districts can enroll in the company's rewards program, which awards anonymous tipsters $250 checks for reporting out-of-district students.

Only in a world where irony is dead could people not marvel at concerned parents being prosecuted for stealing a free public education for their children.

In August, an internal PowerPoint presentation from the American Federation of Teachers surfaced online. The document described how the AFT undermined minority parent groups' efforts in Connecticut to pass the "parent trigger" legislation that offers parents real governing authority to transform failing schools. A key to the AFT's success in killing the effort, said the document, was keeping parent groups from "the table." AFT President Randi Weingarten quickly distanced her organization from the document, but it was small consolation to the parents once again left in the cold.

Kevin Chavous, the board chairman for both the Black Alliance for Educational Options and Democrats for Education Reform, senses that these recent events herald a new age for fed-up parents. Like Martin Luther King Jr. before them, they understand "the fierce urgency of now" involving their children's education. Hence some parents' decisions to break the law—or practice civil disobedience.

This life-changing decision is portrayed in Betty Smith's 1943 novel, "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn," also adapted into an Academy Award-winning film. In the novel, Francie Nolan is the bright young daughter of Irish immigrants living in Brooklyn's Williamsburg immigrant ghetto in the early 20th century. An avid reader, Francie is crushed when she attends her local public school and discovers that opportunity is nonexistent for girls of her ilk.

So Francie and her father Johnny claim the address of a house next to a good public school. Francie enrolls at the school and her life is transformed. A teacher nurtures her love for writing, and she goes on to thrive at the school. Francie eventually becomes an accomplished writer who tells the story of her transformation through education.

The defining difference between the two schools, writes the novel's narrator, is parents: At the good school, "The parents were too American, too aware of the rights granted them by their Constitution to accept injustices meekly. They could not be bulldozed and exploited as could the immigrants and the second-generation Americans."

Were Francie around today, she'd be sad but not surprised to see how little things have changed. Students are still poisoned by low expectations, their parents are still getting bulldozed. But Francie wouldn't yield to despair. She would remind this new generation of courageous parents of the Tree of Heaven, from which her story gets its title—"the one tree in Francie's yard that was neither a pine nor a hemlock. It grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew out of cement." The tree, the narrator adds, "liked poor people."

The defenders of the status quo in our nation's public schools could learn a lot from that tree.

Mr. Flaherty is president and cofounder of Walden Media, which coproduced the 2010 documentary "Waiting for 'Superman.'"

Administration seeks to add more schools to voucher bill in negotiations

By Peter L. DeCoursey
Bureau Chief
Capitolwire


HARRISBURG (Aug. 8) -- Education Secretary Ron Tomalis and Senate Education Committee Chairman Jeff Piccola, R-Dauphin, both expressed optimism about ongoing voucher negotiations aimed at producing a bill this fall.


But a top House GOP leader said it was up to the Senate to pass a voucher bill and up to the governor to drum up public support for it.


Tomalis also said the proposal would be based on the first two years of Senate Bill 1, plus an expansion of the Education Improvement Tax Credit and adding 48 schools where half the students were behind their current grade level in test results.


Tomalis, in a forthcoming CapitolCast interview, said: “This is the governor’s highest priority and what he wants to address with the legislators this … coming fall. … I’m very hopeful, I am much more positive about things in the fall than I was… I feel very comfortable about the conversations we have been having with the Legislature.”


Asked if there was agreement between Corbett and the Senate GOP on what the fall voucher bill will look like, Tomalis said: “Pretty close.”


Piccola responded: “There has been hard work for the last several weeks at the staff level but nothing is finalized. I am pleased with the leadership of the governor's office and the positive involvement of the House.”


The current bill would allow thousands of students in the 144 schools with the worst student achievement records to apply for a voucher of $7,000 or more – limited by the cost of the private school tuition – to attend another school. Tomalis said the Corbett administration also wants to allow - in future years, not the first two years of the bill - kids from schools where 50 percent of students are below grade level, to get vouchers.


That would add 48 schools to the list said Tomalis spokesman Tim Eller.


Piccola said the proposal was still under discussion and not yet finalized, and declined further comment on the addition of the 48 schools.


Other provisions Tomalis said Corbett will push for would seek to bring “accountability” for the private school scholarships. That testing requirement for students receiving the vouchers would largely follow Piccola’s proposal, Tomalis said.


But while Gov. Tom Corbett said Thursday that ultimately a House-Senate-administration joint plan was his goal, a top House Republican leader continued to say a voucher bill has to get to them first, and Corbett and the Senate have to sell it.


Piccola blamed the collapse of a late-starting June voucher effort on the unwillingness of House Republican leaders to negotiate a bill, much less commit to pass it. That drumbeat was then repeated by other Senate leaders on that issue.


House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, said July 20: “The Senate took the lead on school choice the way we took the lead on fair share and welfare reform and passed them first. The Senate is just going to have to decide what they can pass and send over to the House. One chamber has to start all these bills, and we started a bunch. They took the lead on school choice. Now we will see if they can deliver a bill to the House.”


Then, late last week, Turzai told The Morning Call of Allentown on the topic of vouchers: "I think that there are important issues. But the governor and his team, they’re going to have to go sell it. They really need to make the case [to the House and the state]. A lot of time[s], you see movement in the Legislature, when people are pushing it.


"I think, in the school districts that aren’t performing, it’s not always their fault. I don’t blame educators in some of these districts. Sometimes I think it is the system. Sometimes there are bigger issues. But you got to find ways for kids to succeed. I’m certainly open to looking to find more ways to get kids to succeed. But in the end, the governor and his team have to state the case.”


Asked last week by the newspaper to respond to those comments, saying it was up to him to move vouchers, Corbett shrugged and said he hoped for “a joint proposal” on the issue.


Piccola’s e-mailed response to the Turzai comments was: “No reaction since nothing is final.”


Tomalis said the Corbett administration’s commitment to giving students and parents more choices would include, over time, giving students more curricular options through the Internet, and not limiting a student’s classes to a school’s faculty.


Tomalis said this voucher bill “is an important first step, but it is in my mind just the tip of the spear of where we’re going to go in education, not just in Pennsylvania, but across the country.


While the House had pressed to take the EITC from $75 million annually this year to $200 million, Tomalis said it may take a phase-in of years to achieve that level of funding, given the state’s budget problems.


Corbett said: “Vouchers are very important. … We came close to getting it [in June], a lot closer than you all know, I think, to getting it. We’re looking at it, we’re working on it, to come up with a bill that addresses the needs of the children who are attending the failing schools and to get them the ability to go to a better school, to have the money go with the child.”

County Ups the Ante in Voucher War

By STEPHANIE SIMON

DENVER—In a bold bid to revamp public education, a suburban district south of Denver has begun handing out vouchers that use public money to help its largely affluent residents send their children to private and church-based schools.

The move is being challenged in state court and a judge has held hearings this week to determine if the program can go forward.


Douglas County School Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen at Cougar Run Elementary in November.


The Douglas County School District experiment is noteworthy because nearly all voucher programs nationally aim to help children who are poor, have special needs or are trapped in failing public schools. Douglas County, by contrast, is one of the most affluent in the U.S., with household income nearly double the national median, and has schools ranked among the best in Colorado.

The program is also unique in that the district explicitly promotes the move as a way for it to save money. The district is, in effect, outsourcing some students' education to the private sector for less than it would spend to teach them in public schools.

If Douglas County persuades the courts to sign off, it could transform the debate about vouchers nationwide, potentially turning them into a perk for families who want more than even high-performing public schools offer.

"This is a radical idea," said Claire Smrekar, an investigator at the National Center on School Choice, a federal research organization.

Nationally, most voucher programs are run by states. Qualified students receive a voucher that is accepted as full payment at local private schools.

Douglas County does it differently, acting as middleman between state and student—and taking a cut. The state sends the district $6,100 per pupil; the district forwards 75% to each voucher recipient and keeps the rest. Even after administrative costs, the district expects to make what amounts to a profit of $400,000 this year on the 500 students in its pilot program.

That money will be used to "provide services to the students that are left behind in the regular schools," district spokesman Randy Barber said.

State education officials consulted with the district on the program and haven't objected to it.

Opponents, however, fear kids in traditional public schools will suffer. If a high school loses 10 freshmen to vouchers, for instance, it loses more than $50,000. In response, the principal may lay off a math teacher and distribute his students among other instructors, raising class size. The district says it will help the hardest-hit schools, but acknowledges some class sizes may increase.

That enrages parent Cindy Barnard, who says it isn't fair that her son's education in public schools may be diminished so her neighbors can use tax dollars to pay private-school tuition.

But Derrick Doyle, who plans to use vouchers to send his twins to a religious school, says the district is right to help all parents find the best fit for their kids. Parents dissatisfied with class size at their public school, he said, can always pursue other options.

Indeed, the Douglas County system embraces school choice, already offering charter, magnet and online schools. Officials there say the vouchers are a logical next step, helping parents to access different types of education, including faith-based schooling. "It's about parents being able to decide what's best for their children," said Meghann Silverthorn, a school-board member.

About 20 private schools in the area accept vouchers. They're a diverse lot, though predominantly religious: A tiny secular academy serving a few dozen first- through eighth-graders; a Jesuit high school with nearly 1,600 students; a church-based school that touts its curriculum as "unashamedly creationist" and Bible-based. One school accepting vouchers serves only gifted kids, another focuses on students with disabilities.

Many are highly selective, requiring entrance exams and, in some cases, statements of faith. Tuition ranges roughly from $7,000 to $15,000 a year, and vouchers only cover the first $4,500 or so; parents must find other aid or pay the rest out of pocket. The most popular school among voucher recipients, Valor Christian High School, charges $14,000 tuition plus fees of as much as $6,000 for books, sports and field trips.

Because the vouchers are being used at religious schools, the move has drawn fire from the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and a parent coalition. All have sued in state court. A ruling on their request for an injunction is expected soon.

Their lawsuit cites a state constitutional provision forbidding public expenditure to support church-based schools. The state Supreme Court has signaled a flexible interpretation, ruling that college students can use state scholarships to attend religious institutions. But Mark Silverstein, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado, says K-12 education is different because young students are more vulnerable to indoctrination.

District officials say they aren't sending money directly to religious schools. Vouchers go to parents, who decide where to spend them. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a similar arrangement in Cleveland, Ohio.

Critics also say the voucher plan discriminates because most private schools won't accept disabled or struggling students, and because families can only use the vouchers if they have the resources to pay the rest of the tuition bill. District data show the vouchers have been claimed disproportionately by students in the county's wealthiest public schools.

Mr. Barber, the district spokesman, says the vouchers were available to all, without regard to ability, faith or wealth. "We really had nothing to do with who chose to take them," he said.

Write to Stephanie Simon at stephanie.simon@wsj.com

Do We Really Need to Spend More on Schools?

By PAUL E. PETERSON

Even as the president was signing the debt-limit bill designed to cut spending this week, he insisted on continuing "to keep making key investments in things like education." Don't be surprised if the president and his allies reiterate this call for more spending in the nation's schools, which they argue is necessary if our students are to remain competitive.

At first glance, the public seems to agree with this position. In a survey released this week by Education Next, an education research journal, my colleagues and I reported that 65% of the public wants to spend more on our schools. The remaining 35% think spending should either be cut or remain at current levels. That's the kind of polling data that the president's political advisers undoubtedly rely upon when they decide to appeal for more education spending.

Yet the political reality is more complex than those numbers suggest. When the people we surveyed were told how much is actually spent in our schools—$12,922 per student annually, according to the most recent government report—then only 49% said they want to pony up more dollars. We discovered this by randomly splitting our sample in half, asking one half the spending question cold turkey, while giving the other half accurate information about current expenditure.

Later in the same survey, we rephrased the question to bring out the fact that more spending means higher taxes. Specifically, we asked: "Do you think that taxes to fund public schools around the nation should increase, decrease or stay about the same?" When asked about spending in this way, which addresses the tax issue frankly, we found that only 35% support an increase. Sixty-five percent oppose the idea, saying instead that spending should either decrease or stay about the same. The majority also doesn't want to pay more taxes to support their local schools. Only 28% think that's a good idea.

So there is the nation's debt crisis in a nutshell. If people aren't told that nearly $13,000 is currently being spent per pupil, or if they aren't reminded that there is no such thing as a free lunch, they can be persuaded to think schools should be spending still more.

The public is not altogether foolish about such matters. They know that schools are underperforming. When asked what percentage of ninth graders graduate from high school within four years, they accurately estimate, on average, that only 72% manage to do so. (That percentage is almost exactly what official government statistics report.) But the public is tempted to think that the way to fix the problem is to spend more.

So it makes good political sense for the president to call for more spending but never mention current expenditure levels, or the fact that more spending implies higher taxes. But ignoring reality also leads to bigger debts.

Mr. Peterson is a professor of government at Harvard University and directs Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance. He is also a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.