Voucher visions

Missouri's pro-voucher legislators were becoming weary of the battle.

For eight years, they promoted the idea of taxpayer-funded school choice for Missouri. And for eight years, their efforts fell flat.

It looked impossible until June 27. That's when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling legalizing tuition vouchers for private schools in Cleveland, Ohio.

Now, legislators in Missouri and at least 28 other states are discussing ways to open the door for parents who want to take their children out of failing public schools and place them in higher performing public schools or even private and parochial schools with the help of state aid.

In Missouri, where the state constitution specifically prohibits the use of public money for private schools, the road to a voucher system may not be smooth. And even if a voucher system is legalized, the possibility of one in rural areas throughout the state, including Southeast Missouri, is highly unlikely.

In Southeast Missouri only a few schools fail to make adequate yearly progress as mandated by the state. Of those with failings, most rebound within a year or two of the state telling them they need to improve. In inner-city St. Louis and Kansas City many schools fail to make adequate yearly progress.

That's why Peter Kinder, president pro tem of the Missouri Senate, said a realistic voucher system would focus on the inner-city school districts of St. Louis and Kansas City.

"No one who is a serious player in holding elective office today who supports school choice realistically believes we could pass a statewide voucher," Kinder said. "We need to take cues from what has worked in other states. Where school vouchers have achieved has been in inner cities with miserably failing school systems."

Kinder and other voucher backers, including the St. Louis Archdiocese and the national Institute for Justice, a Washington, D.C.-based civil liberties law firm, recognize the obstacles in the state constitution, but say they are not impossible to overcome. Even now Kinder is meeting with other voucher supporters to discuss voucher legislation for the coming legislative term.

Constitutional barrier

The Missouri Constitution contains two articles that present hurdles for legalizing vouchers.

Article I, section 7, states: "No money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect or denomination of religion, or in aid of any priest, preacher, minister or teacher thereof..."

Article IX, section 8, says no public money should be used "...To help to support or sustain any private or public school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other institution of learning controlled by any religious creed, church or sectarian denomination whatever."

The constitution also includes the Blaine Amendment, which has a provision denying any state funding to non-public schools. Twenty-eight other states in the nation also have Blaine Amendments.

Only three places in the nation have taxpayer-funded vouchers: the state of Florida, Cleveland and Milwaukee, Wis. All of them are based on the same concept. The allocation of tax dollars that would have been used to educate the child in a public school goes to fund a voucher for a private school.

Kinder said he and other voucher supporters in the legislature will support school choice by "whatever means we can," which could include filing a federal lawsuit attacking the Missouri Constitution and the Blaine Amendment.

The Institute for Justice is working with several states to build case law recognizing the Blaine Amendment as discriminatory, said Bob Freedman, one of the institute's lawyers for school choice.

Freedman said the institute is working most closely with Washington and Vermont on school choice.

"We think once we start getting solid federal precedents that these amendments violate the federal Constitution it will quickly establish the liberty of parents to choose where their child receives his or her education," he said.

Catholic, NEA positions

That's a time George Henry, superintendent of schools for the St. Louis Archdiocese, eagerly awaits.

The diocese has 185 schools and more than 59,000 students. The St. Louis School District has more than 43,000 students.

"We began in St. Louis, four years ago, offering private vouchers to poor families," Henry said. "It was done on a lottery basis, and we had over 10,000 families apply."

Although a large number of students applied for the private vouchers, Henry said he doesn't expect a mass exodus from public schools to the diocese if public vouchers are made legal.

Greg Jung, president of the Missouri chapter of the National Education Association, thinks a lot of parents are perfectly happy with their children's schools, and that's why he opposes vouchers.

"Between 90 and 95 percent of the public are very pleased with the school their children attend," he said. "We acknowledge there are some schools with a great deal of difficulties, but they are mostly inner-city schools. Instead of blaming public schools and putting more on their back, we need to look at what it takes to give every child a good education -- parents and the community working together."

Jung said a "scheme" like vouchers only "takes money away from the places that need it most."

The Missouri State Teachers Association also believes vouchers are not the solution to improving failing schools.

"With vouchers, we end up abandoning the schools that need help the most," said Todd Fuller, director of public relations for MSTA. "We start to ignore the real issues of making the schools better. It's not an issue of money, but community and parental involvement."

Stuck in the middle

While pro-voucher and anti-voucher groups battle it out, the school districts that would actually be affected by the decision are stuck in the middle.

Edwin Birch, director of public information for the Kansas City School District, believes parents should have choices, but thinks vouchers might not solve all of the problems in the schools.

"We say we want to provide choices, but do we want to provide choices that only erode away the public school system?" Birch asked. "We have 30,000 kids in our district, and many who continue to graduate from inner-city schools go on to be successful citizens."

Birch said he knows there are some parents who are interested in vouchers, but there are just as many, if not more, who like the public school system in Kansas City because of its "diverse economic backgrounds."

Michael Lewis, principal at Roe Elementary School in St. Louis, said while he understands the opinions that say vouchers can harm public schools, he also thinks parents ought to be given choices.

"The idea is: You want to create a school that people want to stay in," he said. "I don't know what kind of an impact a voucher system would make on our school, but I think parents are pretty pleased with our school. I get very few complaints."

Long process

One thing is certain about school choice: The process of bringing vouchers to Missouri won't happen overnight.

"We can't even pre-introduce a bill until December," Sen. Kinder said. "I'm still in the earliest stages of discussions and haven't been able to get together will all of the relevant players on our side yet."

Kinder said what happens over the next four months with elections in the state's General Assembly could make the difference in how quickly the school choice issue moves forward in legislation.

Because of term limits, 12 of 17 seats on the ballot for the Senate and 73 of 163 seats in the House are guaranteed to be filled with newcomers. Kinder said he hopes elections favor Republicans so that both houses will have a Republican majority, which he says would be "much more favorable to school choice."

In order for the Republicans to take a majority of the House, they need a net gain of six seats. The Democrats need a net gain of two seats to claim a majority in the Senate, but just one to create a scenario for ties, which would be broken by Lt. Gov. Joe Maxwell, a Democrat.

Regardless of the makeup of the Senate and House, a decision to change the amendment to allow public money to be used for private schools will have to come to a public vote. After that, a bill would have to be introduced and passed by both chambers and the governor before making vouchers legal.

Staff writer Marc Powers contributed to this report.

hkronmueller@semissourian.com

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