An estimate pegs the cost at $840 million for the program's first five years, which would come from donations made by businesses that would be eligible for tax credits
Students in 13 failing districts would apply for scholarship vouchers to offset the costs of attending private or parochial school. Assembly Majority Leader Joe Cryan said the bill in its current form needs to be reworked.TRENTON — When an Assembly committee recently advanced a bill offering scholarships for students in failing public schools to attend private schools of their choice, proponents said the legislation had enough votes to land on Gov. Chris Christie’s desk within weeks.
Two months later, Democrats now say the bill lacks their support and may not make it out of the lower house or the Senate. Assembly Budget Committee Chairman Louis Greenwald (D-Camden) said the legislation, which includes 13 target districts, needs to be scaled back in scope and cost.
"There is no support for the bill in the caucus at its current size," Greenwald said. "Thirteen towns is not a pilot program, it’s a cultural shift."
Assembly Majority Leader Joe Cryan (D-Union) said the bill (A2810 in the Assembly and S1872 in the Senate) is not manageable in its current state and requires "extensive reworking."
"If it moved forward at all, and I would emphasize ‘if,’ it would move forward as a much-scaled-down version," Cryan said.
The Opportunity Scholarship Act would offer vouchers to as many as 40,000 low-income public school students in the 13 districts — which include Newark, Jersey City and Lakewood. Elementary students would get up to $8,000 a year and high school students up to $11,000 for tuition at private and parochial schools.
An estimate of the Senate bill by the nonpartisan state Office of Legislative Services pegs the program’s cost at $840 million for its first five years. That money would come not from state coffers, but rather from donations made by businesses that would then be eligible for tax credits in equal amounts.
A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming the constitutionality of school vouchers funded by tax credits led Christie to again call for swift passage of the bill in hopes that eligible students could enroll in new schools by the fall.
Christie accused legislators who do not support the scholarship act of being "owned by special interests" and likened opposing the program to "a sin." If the bill ever reaches his desk, Christie has pledged to sign it without delay.
"Basically what they’re saying to poor people in failing districts is ‘Hang in there; it might get better someday,’" Christie said. "But in the meantime, day after day, week after week, year after year, those students are failing."
Since clearing the Assembly Commerce Committee in February amid predictions it would soon go to Christie, the bill fell out of favor with some Democrats because of the "toxicity" surrounding the often impassioned debate over private school vouchers, said Assemblyman Albert Coutinho (D-Essex), who chairs the committee.
"It was wishful thinking of supporters to say it was a done deal," he said.
The Assembly’s version of the voucher legislation would offer smaller scholarships than the Senate version and cost less, yet Greenwald said the program would still need to be capped at five or six failing school districts to gain the support it needs to move forward.
Opponents of the bill, including the state’s largest teachers union, said they were glad the legislation has stalled, according to New Jersey Education Association spokesman Steve Baker. Following the bill’s approval by the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee in January, the NJEA launched a campaign to educate legislators and the public on why vouchers are "not the right policy for New Jersey."
Baker said the teachers union would also oppose a scaled down version of the bill, because it would also be an ineffective use of public tax dollars.
"We talk to a lot of legislators about a lot of issues, and this is an issue we addressed with a number of legislators," Baker said. "We made sure they were aware of the bill’s cost, how it worked, and the impact of vouchers in other parts of the country.
Research conducted by the University of Indiana Bloomington and the University of Arkansas on voucher programs in Cleveland, Milwaukee and Washington, D.C., show students in those programs did little better than their public school counterparts on state tests.
Students in the Washington voucher program did, however, have a 12 percent higher probability of graduating from high school, and their parents reported feeling their children were safer at voucher schools.
One of the bill’s prime sponsors in the Senate, Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr. (R-Union), said the ills of chronically failing schools will take so long to fix that if the state doesn’t offer an immediate alternative, "we risk allowing these children to move forward in life without the tools they need to succeed as adults."
Senate Republican spokesman Adam Bauer urged lawmakers to post the bill for full votes in both houses of the Legislature in spite of waning support from the Democrats. But even some Senate Republicans are still questioning the merits of the bill.
State Sen. Diane Allen (R-Burlington) said she does not support the bill "at the moment," in part because of concerns about whether it’s constitutional, a question for which she has turned to attorneys for advice.
"Our New Jersey Constitution says, as I recall, that we promise a thorough and efficient education through public schools. This (bill) would be doing something other than that, so I’m just not clear that it’s constitutional."
Staff writers Matt Friedman and Chris Megerian contributed to this report.