Dear Conferee:

The National Coalition for Public Education (NCPE) opposes the diversion of public money to private schools through vouchers, and urges you to oppose efforts to include a private school voucher program for the District of Columbia in the final omnibus appropriations package.  Further, we urge you to increase funding for vital education programs to ensure that every child has access to an effective public education. 

Vouchers undermine accountability.  Accountability is the cornerstone of education reforms authorized under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, PL 107-110).  To send public funds to schools over which the public may exercise no oversight is inconsistent, and violates the principles of NCLB.  

Vouchers do not expand parents' educational ""options.""  Private schools may decline to participate in a voucher program, and participating schools may limit enrollment, or even discriminate in their admissions policies.  There is thus no guarantee that any student awarded a voucher would be admitted to the private school of his or her ""choice.""  

Vouchers are NOT needed in the District of Columbia.  Programs to improve student achievement in the District have been implemented and are working.  Test scores announced just last month indicate continued progress, particularly in transformation schools.  Privately funded voucher programs, however, failed to have any significant impact on the academic achievement of African American students who used them to attend private schools in the District.[1]  Federal education policy should fund only programs that have been proven effective.

Vouchers are NOT wanted in the District of Columbia.  The majority of elected District officials, including Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, vigorously oppose publicly funded school voucher programs.  The Council of the District of Columbia, the D.C. School Board, and both local parents groups - DC PTA and Parents United, the D.C. Coalition for Accountable Public Schools oppose the congressional imposition of vouchers on the District.  Additionally, a Zogby survey conducted in November 2002 found that more than three-quarters of District voters oppose private school vouchers.   Members of the clergy in the District have also denounced vouchers.  The Rev. Hagler of Plymouth Congregational Church of Christ, for example, warned that, ""Vouchers could create a new form of 'separate but equal' by steering D.C.'s African-American students toward private schools that aren't held to the testing and other standards in the No Child Left Behind Act.""  

Vouchers threaten civil rights.  

Private schools are exempt from many civil rights laws, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).  Accordingly, any voucher program could result in federally funded discrimination.  Furthermore, where voucher funds may be used for sectarian educational purposes, a voucher program could require taxpayers to support instruction in religions that may be contrary to their own.  In addition to compromising religious freedom, private school vouchers also threaten the autonomy of religious schools.

The undersigned organizations urge you to oppose efforts to include the DC voucher program in the final omnibus package.

Sincerely,

American Association of School Administrators
American Association of University Women
American Civil Liberties Union
American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees
American Federation of Teachers
American Humanist Association
Americans for Democratic Action
Americans for Religious Liberty
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State
American Jewish Committee
American Jewish Congress
Anti-Defamation League
Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development
Association of Educational Service Agencies
Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs
Central Conference of American Rabbis
Council for Exceptional Children
Council of the Great City Schools
General Board of Church and Society of The United Methodist Church
Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America
International Reading Association
International Union, United Auto Workers
Jewish Council for Public Affairs
NA'AMAT USA
National Alliance of Black School Educators
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Association of Elementary School Principals
National Association of Federal Education Program Administrators
National Association of School Psychologists
National Association of State Boards of Education
National Association of State Directors of Special Education
National Black Child Development Institute
National Council of Jewish Women
National Education Association
National Organization for Women
National PTA
National School Boards Association
National Rural Education Association
National Urban League
People For the American Way
Presbyterian Church (USA) Washington Office
School Social Work Association of America
Service Employees International Union
Union of American Hebrew Congregations
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries
Women of Reform Judaism