A statewide initiative that would allow parents to use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools could divert millions of dollars in state money from Ventura County's general services and local public schools.
Proposition 38, which will appear on the November ballot, would give parents a $4,000-per-child credit, or voucher, to help pay for private school tuition.
While some Ventura County parents, many with children in private schools, support the proposition for giving them more choice, it is opposed by public school educators, school board members, teachers unions and politicians, who say it would drain already scarce resources from public campuses.
And there's the question of whether the county's existing private schools could even accommodate new students. Many have waiting lists or tuitions far above the value of the voucher. They also have strict admissions guidelines that may be out of the reach of many students.
Gov. Gray Davis, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and the California Teachers Assn. have come out against the initiative. And a Field Poll last month showed that 36% of voters support the proposition and 49% oppose it, with 15% undecided.
Locally, a few school boards have passed resolutions opposing the initiative, and several more plan to do the same.
"Prop. 38 is going to take away from the public schools and it's undermining what we are trying to do in terms of accountability," said Cliff Rodrigues, president of the Ventura Unified school board, which unanimously passed such a resolution last week.
Last school year, about 15,035 students attended about 100 private and home schools in Ventura County. Those students made up nearly 10% of the total enrollment, with 137,410 students attending public schools throughout the county. Statewide, there were 640,802 students enrolled in private schools in the 1999-2000 school year, 9.7% of total enrollment.
The average annual tuition for private schools in California is $4,568 per elementary student, and $4,773 per high school student, according to a recent study by WestEd, a nonprofit research group based in San Francisco. The report was partially sponsored by the California Teachers Assn.
Under the proposition, parents whose children already attend private or parochial schools, or parents who transfer their children to private schools, would receive the $4,000 subsidy.
