Good synopsis of CO voucher law status.

[donco6]

<reprinted from Vicki's email alert w permission>
Capitol QIPS (Quality Improvement Process Strategy) - a parent perspective on what's happening in Colorado 7-7-04

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the
demand.--Josh Billings

POWER AND KIDS (IN THAT ORDER)

Vouchers have been a source of contention for many, many years. The citizens of Colorado voted them down in two elections in the early 90's and since that time polls and surveys have indicated that this state does not support them. Still, they come up at the Legislature every year under a variety of names.

One voucher law finally passed and a lawsuit was subsequently filed to stop its inception. The plaintiff won the case and the case was appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court. That court recently supported the lower courts findings and vouchers lost yet again.

Will this issue end up at the U. S. Supreme Court? We do not know. What we do know, though, is that a great deal of taxpayer
money is being spent in court on this voucher bill while we cut education programs for all kids, significantly.

The Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) at CU Boulder researches public policy issues and reports on them. The Center has come under serious attack by certain legislators when the Center does not agree with a bill. In fact, their funding was recently cut, but the proper story is that the funding cut had nothing whatsoever to do with the Center's research on vouchers or
that the legislators asking for the funding cut for the Center were the very same legislators who sponsored the voucher bill. But, we digress.

EPIC stands behind its research, however, and continues to release studies on an issue that could negatively impact our state. The latest research of the Center by Dr. Kevin Welner has just been published by The Education Policy Analysis Archives. This publication is an open access peer-reviewed scholarly
journal published on the internet at http://epaa.asu.edu. Primary sponsors of the voucher bill have pledged that vouchers are revenue neutral, as in "not costing us any money." The lawsuits themselves bear witness to the inaccuracy of that statement but Welner has a much more profound argument against the "no cost voucher" theory.

I have printed the Abstract and Summary of Welner's
research below. It is a quick read but if you prefer the full version, please go to: http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v12n31/ and peruse at length.

I hope to print a course in knitting instructions soon that I do not think will be ill-advised. The amount of wool being pulled over Colorado citizen's eyes could surely make for some lovely sweaters which we could sell to create jobs and boost our economy. Revenue neutral vouchers is just part of the wool gathering commencing in our state, but it does not nearly compete with election issues that are coming up in November. More on that later as we enter the
sheep shearing season.

Vicki

Colorado's Voucher Law:
Examining the Claim of Fiscal Neutrality
Kevin G. Welner
University of Colorado, Boulder
Citation: Welner, K. G., (2004, July 2). Colorado's voucher law: Examining the claim of fiscal neutrality. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 12(31).
Retrieved from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v12n31/.

Abstract

Colorado's voucher law was declared unconstitutional by the Colorado Supreme Court on June 28, 2004. Voucher supporters have begun drafting revised legislation designed to address the legal problem. This article calls into question the key financial claim of revenue neutrality-a claim that was central to the promotion and passage of the departing voucher law. The author concludes that the voucher law was not revenue neutral, even though it attempts to exclude
from eligibility those children already enrolled in private schools. In fact, this law, as well as any revised law with similar eligibility provisions, would actually cost taxpayers an additional $10 million per year once fully implemented because the eligibility provision provides little more than a short-term damper on the law's long-term fiscal impact.

Summary

Colorado's school voucher law, called the Colorado Opportunity Contract Pilot Program, was found unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court on June 28th (Owens v. Colorado Congress of Parents, 2004). Immediately, the law's chief legislative sponsor declared that she will draft revised legislation for the following legislative term (Sarche, 2004). This revision, she explained, would
address the court's legal concern. It would likely, however, leave untouched another concern - one that was never addressed when the original legislation was enacted in 2003.

At the time, the state was in the midst of a budget crisis, and legislators from both parties were disinclined to support any bills that required increased expenditures. Accordingly, the voucher bill was promoted as revenue neutral. To accomplish this, the bill excluded from eligibility those children already enrolled in private schools. The bill thus avoided the extensive costs that
would have resulted if the state took on an obligation to pay for the education of these existing private school students. Colorado's official legislative fiscal analyst supported the claim of fiscal neutrality. The analyst routinely prepares a 'fiscal note', which accompanies legislation as it makes its way through the house and senate. The note for the voucher bill concludes, "No additional state funding will be required for the Colorado Opportunity Contract Pilot Program." Yet the law's key eligibility exclusion, barring students already enrolled in private school, amounts to little more than a short-term damper on what would have been the law's long-term fiscal impact. This exclusion did not and could not apply to students entering kindergarten - students who have never before enrolled in any school, whether public or private.

The Colorado law was targeted at low-income students who live in the
attendance areas of low-performing public schools. For children entering first grade or beyond, the eligibility provisions include attendance in public school. For those entering kindergarten, however, this provision was inapplicable, and the only remaining eligibility criteria required that the child's family be
low-income and live within the boundaries of a neighborhood school rated "low" or "unsatisfactory." Students meeting these eligibility criteria for children entering kindergarten are already (pre-voucher-policy) enrolled in private schools. That is, some low-income families in these attendance areas currently choose to enroll their children in private school even without the benefit of a
voucher.

Accordingly, a current snapshot of private school enrollments would include a subset of students who are low-income and who live in the eligible attendance areas. If, under the 2003 voucher law, future such families received a voucher, the state would have begun picking up the tuition tab for this subset of students. By projecting twelve years into the future, one can understand how this eligibility provision would have undermined the voucher law's fiscal neutrality. High school seniors in 2016 would have entered school as kindergarteners in the fall of 2004. Virtually every student then enrolled in private school who could satisfy residency and income requirements would have begun as a kindergartener with a chance to obtain a voucher. The provision excluding from eligibility those children already enrolled in private schools would become progressively meaningless with each passing year and would have become virtually obsolete in 2016.

This study estimates the fiscal effect of the taxpayer subsidization of this likely group of voucher recipients who would attend private school irrespective of voucher availability. It identifies two significant fiscal impacts - one for taxpayers and one for public school districts: 1) Once the voucher law was fully implemented, it would have cost taxpayers an additional amount of approximately $10 million per year. 2) Once the voucher law was fully implemented,
it would have provided an additional source of funding to the participating school districts, in estimated amounts ranging from $12,000 annually for St. Vrain Valley School District to over $1.8 million annually for Denver Public Schools.

Neither of these conclusions bears directly on the merits of the voucher law. A conclusion that the voucher law was not fiscally neutral says nothing about whether the law is good public policy. In fact, the recipients that are the focus of this analysis are children and families that are, by definition, low income and whose local school is rated as "low" or "unsatisfactory" by the state. One could make a sound public policy argument that taxpayers should provide financial assistance to these families. Similarly, a conclusion that the voucher law would have resulted in additional funding to the participating school districts says nothing about these districts' level of need. The participating districts are called upon to administer the law, and this would have generated attendant costs that may or may not have been covered by the other funding provided to the districts. Moreover, these school districts have been identified by the state as in need of improvement, and the additional resources may have provided much-needed help in that regard. This analysis simply does not attempt to address such issues.