Voucher ruling could oust kids from schools

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http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/117927

Voucher ruling could oust kids from schools

June 5, 2008 - 9:13PM

Natekar, Tribune

More than 350 schoolchildren in Arizona might be forced to leave

their schools this fall, when the state will stop its two-year-old

practice of paying for them to attend private schools.

The decision to stop payments came as a result of a recent state

appeals court ruling that two voucher programs - one for students

with disabilities and one for those in the state's foster care

system - are unconstitutional.

In the May ruling, the judge said the programs violate a provision in

the state's constitution barring use of tax dollars to benefit

private or sectarian schools.

Tim Keller, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, which is

defending the programs, said he will file a notice of appeal with the

Arizona Supreme Court by June 16 to overturn the lower court decision.

But last week, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne,

whose education department disperses the vouchers, said that while he

will continue to take applications for the program, he won't make any

future payments to private schools unless the ruling is overturned.

That means families of hundreds of children don't know if their kids

will be able to continue in private schools this fall.

During the last school year, the state doled out an estimated $2.29

million in voucher funds.

McDowell, whose 10-year-old son, Brayden, has Asperger

syndrome, uses a voucher to pay the roughly $22,000 tuition at

Gateway Academy in sdale, a specialty school for children with

autism.

" I think we would really try to keep him there, " she said. " (Brayden)

comes first and I think it would be worth getting a loan and almost

treating it like it's college. But it would be tough. "

McDowell said she tried the public school system for many years, but

teachers there did not know where to place her son, or how to help

him. He was intellectually gifted, but his behavioral problems put

him in special-education classes where he was constantly bored. And

he would leave every morning, crying and saying he " hated school, "

she said.

After two years at Gateway, which gives children a combination of

physical, speech, music, and even equine therapy, McDowell said

things have changed,

" Now, on the weekends he asks if he can go to school. He loves it so

much, " she said.

Twenty students - about one-third of Gateway's student population -

are counting on the vouchers to cover their tuition this fall, said

Robin Sweet, who runs the school.

" It just breaks my heart, " she said. " Otherwise, there is no way they

can afford to put their children here, and they are so happy and

doing so well, and the families are so happy with their lives at

home. "

Removing the children from the school is a " formula for disaster, "

she said.

" No. 1, the kids don't like change. And No. 2, they're here because

the public school system failed them. Bottom line, that's just the

reality, and to put them back into an environment where they've been

bullied and teased and tortured, " Sweet said.

Many of the 179 children with disabilities using vouchers this past

year attended private schools dedicated to autism, while nearly all

the 191 children using the foster-care grants attended religious

schools.

At Chrysalis Academy in Tempe, one of the private schools helping

children with autism, roughly half its students use vouchers.

One of those is Lexie Weck, 6. Weck, a single mother, said she

doesn't know what will happen if she doesn't get the voucher, but

that she will probably try to find some outside loan or assistance so

her daughter can stay at Chrysalis.

" It's going to disrupt our whole plan. We were working really hard on

getting her talking, " Weck said, adding that the school is planning

to implement a new speech therapy to help Lexie start speaking, which

she hasn't yet done.

Still, voucher advocates hope the Supreme Court will take the case

and overturn the earlier decision.

Meanwhile, voucher opponents, including the state's largest teachers

union, maintain the programs ultimately hurt both special-education

and mainstream students. They say private schools lack the

accountability of their public counterparts and take away already

limited school funding for the rest of the state's children.