4/22/03 -- Colorado Gov. Bill Owens April 16 signed into law the first state voucher program since the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last year upholding vouchers in Cleveland.
Under the legislation, low-income students in Denver and 10 other school systems in Colorado would be eligible for vouchers worth $5,000 to $6,000 to fund tuition at private schools of their choice.
Public education advocates oppose vouchers because they drain money from public schools, among other shortcomings. Some estimates suggest vouchers will ultimately cost
Colorado public schools as much as $200 million in state aid over four years.
"With state budgets and local budgets suffering, we think this was an unfortunate time to run this kind of experiment with public assets," says Jane W. Urschel, associate executive director of the Colorado Association of School Boards.
The legislature's decision is particularly galling with critics because Colorado voters have rejected statewide private-school ballot measures twice in recent years.
The Colorado Education Association (CEA) is expected to file a legal challenge to block the program.
"Coloradans do not support diverting public funds to private and religious schools," says CEA President Ron Brady. "They've said so repeatedly. In passing this bill, the legislature is blatantly ignoring . . . the express wishes of the voters."
Billed as a pilot program, vouchers will be limited to students from low-income families who have failed at least one state assessment test in the previous two years -- and who are enrolled in one of 11 school systems with at least eight schools identified as low performing by the state.
The plan caps participation to 1 percent of a school system's enrollment, but that figure could rise to 6 percent in four years. School districts can continue to count voucher-funded students in their pupil enrollment to get a portion of state aid.
Major battles over vouchers are also expected in Texas and Louisiana.
Since last year's Supreme Court decision, which upheld a Cleveland voucher program that used tax dollars to send students to religious schools, there has been much speculation that the voucher movement would regain momentum after a series of political losses.
Marcus Egan, director of NSBA's Voucher Strategy Center, says it's premature to suggest voucher advocates will succeed.
"Passage of the Colorado program might have had more to do with last November's state elections than with the Supreme Court decision," Egan says. "Any suggestion that the voucher movement is spreading like wildfire is a stretch. Only about 25,000 students receive publicly funded vouchers, compared to 47 million who attend our public schools."