Voucher program approved for D.C.

The Senate yesterday approved an education package that would establish an experimental school-voucher program in the District worth $40 million annually for the next five years.

In a 65-28 vote, the Senate approved the plan to allow at least 1,700 poor D.C. public-school students to receive vouchers worth as much as $7,500 to help pay for a private-school education. Eligible students will have to be admitted to a private school and must cover costs exceeding their vouchers.

“School choice is one policy that will help create an educational system that makes no distinction between the poor and the privileged in terms of the quality of education received,” said Education Secretary Rod Paige.

Mr. Paige, who labored with D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams, Democrat, to win congressional passage of the school vouchers, called yesterday’s Senate vote “a truly historic event in the drive to provide educational choices to the children of the District.”

The bill, which the House passed last month in a 209-208 vote, is part of an omnibus spending package that now heads to President Bush, who has said he would sign it into law. President Clinton vetoed a similar D.C. voucher bill six years ago.

“This is the biggest education accomplishment in this city in 20 years,” said Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform in Washington. “Its leaders should be congratulated for being willing to stand up against enormous establishment pressure to keep business as usual in the schools.”

The experimental program has wide implications for federal funding of school-choice programs. Mr. Bush, who advocates school choice, has already proposed $50 million for vouchers in the next budget year.

The D.C. bill provides $13 million each year for a voucher scholarship program; $13 million for teacher training and recruitment, and improving student achievement via tutoring and public school choice; and $13 million to support existing charter schools and create five new charter schools in the District. The remaining $1 million is to pay administrative costs.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, and voucher opponents gathered on Capitol Hill and announced plans to repeal the voucher provision before it goes into effect in September.

Mr. Kennedy said he wants to shift the $13 million for voucher scholarships to public schools. He said the voucher bill was placed in the omnibus package because it could not survive a straight vote in the Senate.

Lorraine Miller, president of the Washington branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the voucher bill was approved because the city lacks full voting representation in Congress.

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat and the District’s nonvoting representative, had led opposition to the voucher initiative.

Voucher supporters said the bill was a carefully crafted compromise that they will fight to keep intact.

Tony Bullock, spokesman for Mr. Williams, said voucher opponents “need to understand that the $40 million included in the bill is $40 million the city doesn’t already have.”

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