Thursday, March 7, 2002 in Buffalo News
By Peter Simon
Vouchers allowed Buffalo residents James and Valerie Booker to realize their dream of sending their four children to religious elementary schools.
The same local scholarship fund helped a 55-year-old Lutheran school in Eggertsville fend off financial troubles and remain open during a period of steeply declining enrollment.
The U.S. Supreme Court last week heard arguments about publicly funded vouchers, and it will decide later this year if they are constitutional. But this red-hot issue won’t be settled in Buffalo.
What’s different here? The local vouchers operate without a penny of government assistance. But the experiences of the BISON (Buffalo Inner-City Scholarship Network) Fund provide valuable insights into the effect of vouchers and school choice without stirring up controversy over constitutional church-state issues or the proper use of public funds. For example, Booker said it should not have been left to a private organization to offer his children a better option.
“It should have been the government,” said Booker, a rehabilitation aide whose children attend Martin Luther Christian School. “If they would improve public schools to the level of the parochial schools, you wouldn’t have to worry about your kids going to an overcrowded school or an unsafe school.”
Opponents of government-funded vouchers, though, say vouchers drain public schools of badly needed funds.
“There are thousands and thousands of kids in public schools, and we need the resources to meet their needs,” said Buffalo School Superintendent Marion Canedo. “Vouchers drain the resources off for a few at the expense of the many.”
This year alone, the BISON Fund raised $578,037 — from foundations and individual and corporate donations — to provide scholarships for 942 students attending 71 religious schools and three private, nonreligious schools. The bulk of the recipients — 791 pupils — attend 48 Catholic schools.
And a grant announced Wednesday by the national Children’s Scholarship Fund will allow roughly 1,000 youngsters from low-income families to continue their education in elementary schools here through BISON Fund grants.
The BISON Fund’s five-year experience shows that:
The demand for alternatives to public schools is great among low-income Buffalo families. When it ran an extensive advertising campaign in 1999, the BISON Fund received more than 5,000 applications, or more than five for every available slot.
The scholarships — which range from 25 to 75 percent of a school’s tuition — allow many families to enroll their children in private schools who otherwise couldn’t.
Parochial schools benefit greatly from the influx of students. The Martin Luther Christian School, 1085 Eggert Road, Eggertsville, was on the verge of closing several years ago because of low enrollment, but a surge of students from the BISON Fund gave the Lutheran school new life, said Principal Patty Duncan.
Most — but not all — voucher recipients here switch from public to parochial schools. About 58 percent of the BISON Fund participants switch from public to private schools. The other 42 percent were already at private schools, but their families were struggling with tuition bills.
Total reliance on private funds defuses much public opposition and can even win the support of those who oppose publicly funded vouchers.
“Many people can’t afford private tuition, and if somebody wants to come up with it for them, that’s fine,” said Frank B. Mesiah, president of the local branch of the NAACP. “But the point is, it should not be public funding.”
But even privately funded voucher programs have their detractors.
“If we don’t strengthen public education, then these programs are really self-defeating,” said Jeanne-Noel Mahoney, executive director of the regional office of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “There’s no way they will lead to improved education for all students, unless we’re completely giving up on public education.”
Lottery system
Scholarships are based strictly on need, and are awarded through a lottery system. Students select their schools, and must apply and be admitted on their own.
“This is not a gifted and talented program,” said Christopher L. Jacobs, president of the BISON Fund. “I think a lot of times we get the ‘C’ students, the ones who are on the line of going one way or another. It helps them go the positive route.”
Catholic school officials hope the BISON Fund will serve as a catalyst for government-funded vouchers.
“That would be our hope, to give even more families an opportunity to take advantage of the wonderful things Catholic schools afford,” said Brother Robert R. Bimonte, superintendent of education for the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo. “The primary concern has got to be what is best for the children. That’s a fundamental right that parents should not be denied.”
But the New York Civil Liberties Union says that publicly funded vouchers violate the constitutional separation of church and state, and that the group would mount a legal challenge to any government-sponsored program here.
“It’s a public subsidy of religious schools and organizations,” Mahoney said. “The other part of it is that any regulation of these funds would lead to an intrusion of the government into church affairs.”
Those questions are already before the Supreme Court in a case involving a 6-year-old public voucher program in Cleveland. A ruling is expected by summer on whether there is a way to set up a voucher program that does not violate the constitutional separation of church and state.
Numerous state and school districts are awaiting word from the high court. In addition to Cleveland, voucher programs now exist in Milwaukee and Florida.
Canedo says partial scholarships — like those provided by the BISON Fund — still leave the most needy families behind, because their families can’t come up with 25 percent of the tuition.
But Jacobs feels that all families — one way or another — should have educational choices.
“Right now, the only ones that don’t have choices are low-income families,” he said. “As a social justice issue, I don’t think that’s fair.”
Booker and his wife, Valerie — who is now a teaching assistant at Martin Luther Christian School — said their children were in public schools with large classes, little individual attention and a sense of disorder until the family was awarded BISON Fund scholarships.
“They definitely came to our rescue,” Booker said of the BISON Fund. “Parochial school education is something we always wanted, but we just couldn’t afford it.”
Performance not tracked
The BISON Fund does not track student achievement and cannot quantify the academic performance of its scholarship recipients.
“Our view is that we’re an enabler,” Jacobs said. “We provide the funds for parents to exercise their right to choose a school for their children.”
Duncan, the principal at Martin Luther Christian School, said that BISON Fund parents have a strong sense for the needs of their children, but that smaller class sizes and individual attention are sometimes not enough.
“When the kids come in in fourth or fifth grade and are having academic problems, no, we can’t turn it around miraculously in a year or two,” she said.
And just as the BISON Fund gave the Martin Luther School a boost, an even newer form of school choice — charter schools — took a big bite out the Eggertsville school’s enrollment in September.
Eighteen students left for the Charter School for Applied Technologies, feeling they could get similar instruction and discipline at no cost, Duncan said. Even so, 32 of Martin Luther’s 120 students receive BISON Fund scholarships.
e-mail: psimon@buffnews.com