Dr. Tony Bennett Honored with John T. Walton Champions for School Choice Award

Alliance for School Choice

May, 07, 2012

Indiana Superintendent recognized for commitment to children, high-quality educational options

WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 7, 2012)—Dr. Tony Bennett—the Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction who was instrumental in advocating for and implementing the largest first-year voucher program ever—received the John T. Walton Champions for School Choice Award last week at the third annual National Policy Summit hosted by the American Federation for Children and the Alliance for School Choice in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Bennett, who was elected as the head of Indiana’s public school system in 2008, worked closely with Governor Mitch Daniels and the state legislature to create the Choice Scholarship Program, a statewide voucher program for students from low- and middle-income families to attend the school of their parents’ choice.  Nearly 4,000 students were enrolled in the program in its first year.

“Tony Bennett is a committed advocate for Indiana’s children and has worked tirelessly to ensure that all Hoosier children have access to more educational opportunities,” said Betsy DeVos, chairman of the Alliance for School Choice.  “Tony has dedicated his life to improving the lives of children.  His leadership, dedication, and humility embody the ideals of the Walton award.”

The award, named after the philanthropist and education reform champion John T. Walton, honors a prominent leader in the school choice movement for groundbreaking and dedicated work for America’s children.

The Alliance created the award to honor Walton, who died tragically in a 2005 plane crash, to recognize his amazing personal and financial contributions to the cause of providing educational options for children, especially those from low-income families. Previous award winners have included leading philanthropists, school choice pioneers, and grassroots leaders.

Since becoming superintendent in 2009, Bennett has shepherded reforms including voucher and tax credit scholarship programs, charter school expansion, and merit pay, resulting in dramatically more educational options, increased high school graduation rates, and improved scores on state assessment exams and Advanced Placement exams.  Prior to becoming superintendent, Bennett worked as a science teacher, basketball coach, principal, and local school superintendent.

To watch a video on the history of the Alliance for School Choice’s John T. Walton Champions for School Choice Award, as well as Walton’s contributions to the movement, click here.

For a comprehensive list of former recipients, click here.

Indiana’s voucher program has been applauded for bringing school options to Hoosier families. Now, the program is being recognized for redistributing savings across the state too. According to data just released by the Indiana Department of Education, the first year of the voucher program will result in nearly $4.2 million in redistributed savings statewide.

In total, 292 public school corporations and 63 charter schools will benefit from redistributed savings generated by the voucher program. The Department of Education has asked the State Budget Agency to make the special choice distribution on May 18, 2012.
“We were thrilled to have nearly 4,000 low- and middle-income Hoosier students benefiting from vouchers in year one,” said Lindsey Brown, Executive Director of School Choice Indiana. “It’s exciting to be able to provide quality opportunities for kids, while saving the state millions of dollars that are now being distributed to Indiana schools. ”

Each school corporation’s distribution is determined based on its percentage share of state tuition support and a five-step calculation formula. A complete list of distributions for all public school corporations and charter schools is available at (link to page on DOE web site). Some of the largest choice distribution recipients include:

• Indianapolis Public Schools – $169,293.16
• Fort Wayne Community Schools – $129,331.93
• Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation – $91,354.73
• South Bend Community School Corporation – $89,272.41
• MSD Wayne Township – $68,261.54

“The fact that Indiana’s Choice Scholarship Program is generating redistributed savings for the state is consistent with what we are seeing across the country” said Robert Enlow, President and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. “This is good news because the redistributed savings recognized through this program will raise per-pupil allocations for the schools and allow them to have greater financial resources for educating students.”

In addition to the savings redistribution, the program application window is now open for 2012-2013. School Choice Indiana officials expect significantly more Indiana families to utilize vouchers to enroll in schools that meet the learning needs of their children. So, the organization will be working throughout the spring and summer to educate as many Hoosier families as possible about eligibility, participating schools, application guidelines and more.

Parent information sessions are already being held in communities across the state, and the list of upcoming meetings is available on School Choice Indiana’s Facebook page. To get more information about the voucher program and other school choice options, families can also visit the MyChoiceINed.com website.

Income guidelines for the 2012-2013 school year have been updated based on the new free-and-reduced lunch program rates. Students qualifying for the federal free-and-reduced lunch program ($42,643 for a family of four) are eligible for a voucher worth up to 90 percent of the state tuition amount for the sending school district. Children from families who earn up to 150 percent of the free-and-reduced lunch eligibility (around $63,964 for a family of four) can receive a scholarship for up to 50 percent of the tuition amount. Nearly 85 percent of voucher recipients in the 2011-2012 school year were on the free-and-reduced lunch program.

To be eligible for participation in the voucher program, children in grades 2–12 must have attended a public school for the prior two semesters. Students in grades 1–12 who received a scholarship from a certified scholarship granting organization in the previous year can apply to the program as well.

In the 2011–2012 school year, the number of available vouchers was capped at 7,500 children. This year the participation cap increases to 15,000 students. Currently, there are approximately 270 non-public schools across Indiana accepting voucher students.

One visit was all it took.

Now, several months into her first year at Roncalli, Dayana has no regrets about her decision to transfer and lauds the General Assembly for creating the voucher program.

“It opens doors that you would probably never even see that were there,” Dayana said. “You have an opportunity to do better in life and have a great chance to not just get good grades and all that but actually get to a point, get to a goal, by those grades.”

Dayana is among 3,919 students from low- to moderate-income Indiana families who qualified for an Indiana Choice Scholarship this year. Of those, 86 percent were moving from a public school to a private one. Some have since returned to their public schools. Others, like Dayana, are thriving.

“My education has definitely changed because my GPA went up, and I’m really happy about it,” Dayana said. “I now have this sense of achievement. I know I’m trying hard, and I understand it now. I’m not just going through the motions anymore.”

Dayana’s family emigrated from Mexico when she was 6 years old because of her mother’s job. Her father is now a server at two restaurants and her mother stays at home. Dayana and her sister, 7-year-old Ashley, qualified for full vouchers, which use public money to pay 90 percent of the cost of private school tuition and are available to families of four with a household income of $41,348 or less. Students in a family of four with incomes between $41,349 and $62,022 can receive a voucher worth 50 percent of the tuition.

Ashley attends Our Lady of the Greenwood Catholic School. Dayana said she’s thrilled her younger sister is getting an earlier start at a private school, which she hopes will provide a better learning environment.

“I think at public school, you get to see things and hear things about life that you shouldn’t be hearing at that age,” Dayana said. “By her going to a private, religious school, I definitely think that’s going to be better for her. She won’t have to put up with all of that stuff. She won’t have to mature faster than she should.”

But Dayana said the advantages at private schools are not just about what you won’t find but about what you will as well. Colleges come to recruit at Roncalli, clubs and after-school activities are diverse, and the atmosphere is nurturing.

There’s less chaos and more focus on education, she said. “It hurts me to say that,” Dayana acknowledged. She still thinks of the Greenwood schools as her home. But Roncalli, she said, is “more like a big family.”

Still, Dayana said she wouldn’t necessarily recommend at transfer to all students at a public school.

“I think it depends on the person,” she said. “I really want to succeed in life. Some people should stay in a public school though. If they were able to come to a private school, maybe that would change for them, but there are some kids that really just don’t care about their education.”

Listen to Dayana’s Interview

Listen to the Second Part of Dayana’s Interview

Indiana Claims Title of Nation’s Biggest First-Year Voucher Program Ever; Hoosier Families Celebrate Benefits that School Choice Brings Their Kids

INDIANAPOLIS, November 3, 2011 – Today, the Indiana Department of Education (DOE) released final numbers for the first year of the School Scholarship Program. The Hoosier State is now home to the nation’s biggest first-year voucher program ever. With 3,919 students approved for participation, families from every corner of the state are applauding Governor Daniels, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett and state legislators for allowing them to choose a school that best meets their child’s individual learning needs.

“It’s terrific to see that so many families have taken advantage of this exciting new opportunity,” said Lindsey Brown, Executive Director of School Choice Indiana. “Students are already benefiting from this important program and the stories that we’ve heard from parents and principals have been very encouraging.”

Nearly 85 percent, or 3,326, of voucher recipients are on the free and reduced lunch program. Fifty three percent of program participants represent minority families, including 24 percent African-American and 19 percent Hispanic.

According to the DOE, 69 percent of students approved for vouchers are from metropolitan areas, 16 percent are from suburban areas, and 15 percent are from rural and town areas. Children from 185 Indiana school districts are participating in the program, with no school district accounting for more than 17 percent of the total scholarship recipients. The largest number of voucher approvals by city includes: 644 students from Indianapolis, 393 from Fort Wayne, 374 from South Bend, 139 from Anderson, 131 from Gary, and 121 from Evansville.

The final tally from the DOE finds that the level of participation in Indiana significantly exceeded what was seen in other states during the first year of voucher program implementation. For example, a similar program in Ohio brought in roughly 2,713 participants in its first year of 2007. The next highest first-year voucher participation rate came from the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program wherein 1997 a total of 1,994 students participated in the program.

Indiana is Home to Nation’s Biggest First-Year Voucher Program/Page 2

“It is exciting to see that so many families, particularly so many low-income families, have leveraged the opportunity to try a different learning setting for their children,” said Robert Enlow, President and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. “Families across the state have embraced their right to choose what’s best for their kids and those students will benefit from it. That’s what the school voucher program is all about.”

“As a licensed teacher, I have a special understanding of how important education is to my children and that’s why I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for them to benefit from the new voucher program,” said Christina Boland of Brazil, Ind. “Since transferring my kids to St. Patrick School in Terre Haute, I have noticed a clear difference in each one of them. I cannot tell you how long it has been since my children were excited to go to school, and now they are happy to do so. I love seeing the joy in their faces as they start each new day and I wish that every parent could have the same experience.”

“Education is so important to our kids and our future as a city and a country,” said Chuck Weisenbach, principal at Roncalli High School. “Parents want the best opportunity for their kids. Sometimes that means a great public school. Sometimes that means a great parochial school. Whatever the case, I’m just glad that we have a voucher program that puts parents in charge of determining the best option for their kids.”

The number of available vouchers for the 2011-2012 year was capped at 7,500 children. Next year the participation cap increases to 15,000 children. Limits on the number of vouchers will be removed in the third year of the program.

Although the student application window is currently closed, the Department of Education will release information at a later date to alert families when the next window to apply is open. The list of approved schools and eligibility requirements can be found at http://www.MyChoiceINed.com and http://www.doe.in.gov/schoolchoice.

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About School Choice Indiana: School Choice Indiana, Inc. is a non-partisan, statewide organization dedicated to the principle that providing parents with real choices in the education of their children will improve educational outcomes and improve the quality of education, both in private and public schools.

For commentary and interview opportunities, please contact:

School choice leaders:

Lindsey Brown

Executive Director of School Choice Indiana

215-837-3680; lbrown@schoolchoiceindiana.org

Robert Enlow

President and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice

317-681-0745; rcenlow@edchoice.org

John Elcesser

Executive Director of the Indiana Non-Public Education Association

317-236-7329; jelcesser@archindy.org

Glenn Tebbe

Executive Director of the Indiana Catholic Conference

317-236-1455; gtebbe@archindy.org

Derek Redelman

Vice President, Education & Workforce Development, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce

317-264-6880; dredelman@indianachamber.com

Kevin Chavous

Board Chair of the Black Alliance for Educational Options

202-255-3870; kchavous@baeo.org

Andrew Campanella

National Director of Communications, American Federation for Children

202-276-1303; acampanella@federationforchildren.org

Rabbi A.D. Motzen

Regional Director, Agudath Israel

513-530-1364; ADMotzen@agudathisrael-mwr.org

Parents participating in the school choice program:

Amanda

Indianapolis, IN

317-893-5382

Christina Boland

Brazil, IN

812-208-9625; cboland5@yahoo.com

Colleen Bennett

Michigan City, IN

219-861-8742; colleenbennett3204@gmail.com

Theresa Arvin

Evansville, IN

812-491-9772; hapi@wowway.com

Brian

Evansville, IN

812-430-9004

Cynthia L. Hall

Gary, Ind.

219-938-1426

Administrators of schools participating in the school choice program:

Chuck Weisenbach

Principal, Roncalli High School

317-787-8277 ext. 224; cweisenbach@roncallihs.org

Jo Hoy

Principal, Cardinal Ritter High School

317-924-4333; jhoy@cardinalritter.org

Brian Hudson

Principal, Covenant Christian High School

317-390-0202; brianhudson@covenantchristian.org

Sara Guth

Principal, St. Bernard School

812-649-250; sguth@evdio.org

Terry Breininger

Principal, Concordia Lutheran High School

260-483-1102 ext. 221; CLHS@clhscadets.com

Leanne DeFelice

Dean of Academics. The Howe School

260-562-2131 x234; ldefelice@thehoweschool.org

Carl Loesch

Principal, Marian Catholic High School

574-259-5257; cloesch@marianhs.org

Jill Wells

Administrator, Christian Academy

812-944-6200; jwells@caschools.us

The voucher program allows parents a new option when it comes to their children’s education. Parents who meet income requirements, and whose children were enrolled in a public school for two semesters preceding signing-up for the voucher program, are eligible to transfer their children into a private school, and a portion of the public dollars that were used on those children in the public school would follow them to the private school. Unfortunately, the application window for this school year has closed.

In addition to Indiana’s newly created voucher program that went into effect in July of 2011, the Indiana General Assembly also voted in favor of expanding the tax credit scholarship program during the 2011 session. The tax credit scholarship program is run by state approved non-for-profits that accept individual and corporate donations and use those donations to award children private scholarships so they can attend a private school. Children who receive a tax credit scholarship are eligible for a voucher the following school year, as long as they meet the income requirements.

As if those two programs aren’t exciting enough, the State Legislature also passed a law that allows current private school and homeschool families to take a new tax deduction on their state taxes. It’s a $1,000 tax deduction per school-aged child for educational expenses.

“We’re very excited about the success of the Choice Scholarship Program,” said School Choice Indiana’s Executive Director, Lindsey Brown. “With the new voucher program, the expansion of the tax credit scholarship program and the new tax deduction, Indiana is providing choices that parents wants and opportunities that kids deserve. It’s great to see other states looking at Indiana as the example on how to structure their education system.”

Although the deadline to apply for the Choice Programs has passed for this year, we’ll keep you updated on when the application window for next year opens. For more information on the new school choice programs, please visit: www.MyChoiceINed.com.

Originally published 06:15 p.m., June 9, 2011
Updated 06:15 p.m., June 9, 2011

Teachers unions and their political allies argue that market forces can’t supply quality education. According to them, only our existing system—politicized and monopolistic—will do the trick. Yet Americans would find that approach ludicrous if applied to other vital goods or services.

Suppose that groceries were supplied in the same way as K-12 education. Residents of each county would pay taxes on their properties. Nearly half of those tax revenues would then be spent by government officials to build and operate supermarkets. Each family would be assigned to a particular supermarket according to its home address. And each family would get its weekly allotment of groceries—”for free”—from its neighborhood public supermarket.

No family would be permitted to get groceries from a public supermarket outside of its district. Fortunately, though, thanks to a Supreme Court decision, families would be free to shop at private supermarkets that charge directly for the groceries they offer. Private-supermarket families, however, would receive no reductions in their property taxes.

Of course, the quality of public supermarkets would play a major role in families’ choices about where to live. Real-estate agents and chambers of commerce in prosperous neighborhoods would brag about the high quality of public supermarkets to which families in their cities and towns are assigned.

Being largely protected from consumer choice, almost all public supermarkets would be worse than private ones. In poor counties the quality of public supermarkets would be downright abysmal. Poor people—entitled in principle to excellent supermarkets—would in fact suffer unusually poor supermarket quality.

How could it be otherwise? Public supermarkets would have captive customers and revenues supplied not by customers but by the government. Of course they wouldn’t organize themselves efficiently to meet customers’ demands.

Responding to these failures, thoughtful souls would call for “supermarket choice” fueled by vouchers or tax credits. Those calls would be vigorously opposed by public-supermarket administrators and workers.

Opponents of supermarket choice would accuse its proponents of demonizing supermarket workers (who, after all, have no control over their customers’ poor eating habits at home). Advocates of choice would also be accused of trying to deny ordinary families the food needed for survival. Such choice, it would be alleged, would drain precious resources from public supermarkets whose poor performance testifies to their overwhelming need for more public funds.

As for the handful of radicals who call for total separation of supermarket and state—well, they would be criticized by almost everyone as antisocial devils indifferent to the starvation that would haunt the land if the provision of groceries were governed exclusively by private market forces.

In the face of calls for supermarket choice, supermarket-workers unions would use their significant resources for lobbying—in favor of public-supermarkets’ monopoly power and against any suggestion that market forces are appropriate for delivering something as essential as groceries. Some indignant public-supermarket defenders would even rail against the insensitivity of referring to grocery shoppers as “customers,” on the grounds that the relationship between the public servants who supply life-giving groceries and the citizens who need those groceries is not so crass as to be discussed in terms of commerce.

Recognizing that the erosion of their monopoly would stop the gravy train that pays their members handsome salaries without requiring them to satisfy paying customers, unions would ensure that any grass-roots effort to introduce supermarket choice meets fierce political opposition.

In reality, of course, groceries and many other staples of daily life are distributed with extraordinary effectiveness by competitive markets responding to consumer choice. The same could be true of education—the unions’ self-serving protestations notwithstanding.
Mr. Boudreaux is professor of economics at George Mason University and a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center.

But if history is any indication, Washington will be the exception, and many or all of these other efforts will fail, despite the crucial difference they could make.

That’s because, while vouchers have commanded the policy equivalent of Lindsay Lohan-like level of attention over the past decades, they’ve been implemented about as frequently as Lohan churns out a successful movie. States as blue as California and as red as Utah have rejected vouchers. Only 12 states and Washington have vouchers or similar programs, and a mere 190,000 students (out of 54 million) participate in such programs.

The kill-the-vouchers crowd

Of course, vouchers have often faced the type of strident opposition usually reserved for proposals to, say, hike gas taxes. Teachers unions have actively campaigned against them. Parents, worried that the good public schools their children attend could lose funds, are wary. Others point to failure of vouchers to consistently raise test scores as a reason to maintain the education status quo.

That’s unfortunate, because vouchers are helping boost students’ high school graduation rates. For anyone who wants to see low-income students have a shot at climbing the economic ladder, that fact alone makes vouchers worth fighting for.

In Washington, D.C., a 2010 study by the U.S. Department of Education found that there was a 21 percentage point gap between the graduation rates of those in the voucher program (graduation rate: 91%) and those who had applied, but had failed to win the placement lottery (70%). A study released late last month by the University of Arkansas’ School Choice Demonstration Project showed a similar pattern in Milwaukee, with those using vouchers in the 9th grade graduating at a rate (77%) eight percentage points higher than their peers in public schools (69%).

Both the Washington, D.C. and Milwaukee voucher programs serve low-income students, for whom educational success is not the norm. According to Teach for America, an organization that recruits recent college graduates to teach at failing public schools, onlyhalf of low-income students graduate high school by age 18.

But without that degree, young adults’ chance at career success — and economic mobility — is much slimmer. According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, 1.3 million teens drop out of high school every year. The financial consequence for that decision is real: Among adults lacking a high school degree, the unemployment rate is 15.2%, compared to 10.5% for adults with a high school degree (but no additional education). Dropouts also face lower wages when they do nab jobs, making an average of about $10,000 less than high school graduates annually, according to the 2008 numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau.

When teens abandon their education, it’s not just teachers who love giving math pop quizzes who lose. It also impacts everyone who wants to see the American economy thrive. The Alliance estimates that if the dropout rate was halved, those unexpected high school grads could earn an extra $7.6 billion annually. By the mid-point of those students’ careers, those extra earnings could have added $9.6 billion to the U.S. economy, creating as many as 54,000 jobs.

Vouchers can’t hurt

Widespread voucher usage could help make that economic surge happen. And for all the backlash, there is no serious downside to increasing vouchers. While vouchers have failed to transform struggling students into Harvard-bound prodigies, not one study has showed that vouchers students do worse than their economic peers in public schools, according to University of Arkansas education professor Patrick Wolf, a researcher on both the Washington and the Milwaukee studies.

“It’s either no significant difference or a positive effect,” says Wolf. He also notes that evidence supports the notion that vouchers boost academic outcomes more than other, less controversial reforms, such as class size reductions and additional mentoring.

Nor will vouchers hurt public schools: a March report by the Foundation for Educational Choice showed that in 18 out of 19 studies done on the impact of vouchers, public schools improved after the introduction of a voucher program.

Like all teens, low-income students have plenty to worry about: driving lessons, acneand whether it’s OK to like Justin Bieber or whether he’s strictly for the tween set. What they shouldn’t have to worry about is having access to good schools. It’s time to increase voucher availability, ensuring that all children, regardless of whether their parents flip burgers or manage hedge funds, have a chance to soar to the top.

Katrina Trinko, a former editorial page intern at USA TODAY, writes for National Review Online.

Unlike other systems that are limited to lower-income households, children with special needs or those in failing schools, this one would be open to a much larger pool of students, including those whose parents earn up to $60,000 a year. And within three years, there would be no limit on the number of children who could enroll.

“The goal is to make sure as many kids as possible get choice,” said Robert Enlow, president of the Foundation for Educational Choice, an Indianapolis-based advocacy group pushing for school vouchers.

Students receiving vouchers make up less than 1 percent of school enrollment nationwide, but vouchers have been one of the top priorities among conservatives. Indiana’s Republican-controlled Legislature hopes to deliver soon on its long-sought overhaul of public education now that Democrats who fled the state have returned.

Democrats in the House stayed in Illinois for five weeks to deprive the chamber of a quorum because they did not have enough votes to stop the voucher proposal and others they oppose. They came back Monday, claiming victory after winning some concessions from the GOP on vouchers and other legislation.

The vouchers are government-issued certificates that can be applied to private tuition, essentially allowing parents to use some of the tax dollars that would normally be sent to public schools at other institutions.

The vouchers do not carry any additional expense for the state because they mainly transfer money between schools. But public-school advocates and many Democrats have long opposed large-scale voucher programs, saying they could siphon tax money from local districts, potentially leading to a steep decline in the quality of education.

“It’s a national agenda,” said Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson, a Democrat from Bloomington. “And I think Indiana is the victim of it.”

Until now, most voucher programs in the rest of the country have been limited to poor students, those in chronically failing schools or those with special needs.

Indiana’s system would be significantly larger, offering money to students from middle-class homes and solid school districts. Though Republicans have agreed to some restrictions — to appease both Democrats and skeptics in their own ranks — the program would still be the most expansive in the United States.

“We fund education for a reason — to give individual children the skills they need to compete in life,” said Luke Messer, former executive director of the Indiana Republican Party who now heads School Choice Indiana. “If the money follows the child, parents ought to have the right to put their child in whatever opportunity they think would best serve their family.”

Lawmakers in the House are expected to take a key vote on the idea within days. If it passes, the bill would go next to the Senate. Because the GOP controls both chambers and the governor’s office, some form of the legislation is likely to pass.

The actual value of the vouchers would be based on a sliding scale and would be less than the amount of tax money a public school would have received for that student. In the case of students in grades 1 through 8, the maximum value would be $4,500.

As originally introduced, Indiana’s bill would have provided money to students from families of four making more than $100,000 a year.

The income limits were then lowered to about $80,000, and Republicans on Tuesday reduced them again to about $60,000 for a family of four. Lawmakers also capped the program at 7,500 students for the first year and 15,000 for the second year — a fraction of the state’s approximately 1 million students.

By the third year, the caps on the number of participating students would expire.

The limits, which provide a foothold for expansion in years to come, are also intended to ease the minds of Republicans who are wary of an abrupt change or have other concerns.

For instance, state Sen. Brent Steele, a Republican from the small town of Bedford, has raised concerns about tax money being directed to religious schools, saying some Muslim schools teach extremism.

Several states already give certain students money to attend private school if they choose. Voucher programs are available to students in underperforming schools in Ohio, low-income students in Milwaukee and youths with disabilities in Florida, for example.

Momentum for vouchers been building since the 2010 election, which produced major Republican gains in many statehouses across the country. Several new Republican governors are pushing to make vouchers widely available.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget would repeal limits on Milwaukee’s voucher program and offer them to any city resident. Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Ohio Gov. John Kasich want to expand their voucher systems, too.

And Pennsylvania Republicans are pushing a voucher bill that would subsidize private school tuition for low-income students, first for those in poorly performing schools but eventually for all low-income children in the state.

Voucher critics have watched the debate with alarm, fearing the potential harm to public schools and perceived threats to the separation of church and state.

“It’s a blitzkrieg,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of Freedom From Religion Foundation based in Madison, Wis. “They’re just like drunk with power. This is what we’re seeing everywhere. They need to be stopped. Nobody campaigned on ‘Let’s rob the public schools and give all the money to parochial schools.’”

But some parents are demanding more options beyond public school.

Heather Coffy, a single mother of three in Indianapolis, said her oldest son was struggling in public school when she applied for a private school-choice scholarship. The money she received helped put her three kids in a Catholic school, where she says they are thriving.

“I will do anything possible to give them the education I know they deserve,” Coffy said.