In 1993, Douglas D. Dewey and George A. Pieler founded the Washington Scholarship Fund to provide low-income students with partial scholarships to attend private schools. In 1994, 30 children received scholarships averaging $850. Currently, the WSF provides scholarships averaging $1,700 to students from 672 families.[1]

Also in 1993, Ambassador Henry D. Owen and Theodore A. Schwab founded Capital Partners for Education (CPE), which provides scholarships and mentoring for low-income high school students. CPE has grown from serving six students in its first year to supporting more than 85 young people. Ninety-eight percent of CPE graduates go on to college. Mentors are drawn from the local professional community.[2]

On November 2, 1995, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a voucher proposal for students in the District of Columbia as an amendment to the fiscal year (FY) 1996 D.C. appropriations bill (H.R. 2546). The amendment, proposed by then-Representative Steve Gunderson (R-WI), would have provided funding for charter schools, would have given $3,000 vouchers to students whose family income fell below the poverty level, and would have provided $1,500 vouchers to students whose family incomes did not exceed 180 percent of the poverty level. The vouchers would have been redeemable at a public, private, or religious school in the District or surrounding counties in Virginia and Maryland.[3]

Representative Gunderson's voucher proposal died in the U.S. Senate following a filibuster led by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), but a charter school plan that Gunderson sponsored was passed. The strong law set up two chartering authorities, the D.C. Board of Education and a Public Charter School Board, which could approve as many as 20 charter schools each year. Any entity interested in opening a charter school could submit an application, and the school, if its application was approved, would receive an automatic waiver from most District education laws.[4]

Consideration of a D.C. school choice plan was revived when then-Senator Dan Coats (R-IN) and Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS), Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), and Judd Gregg (R-NH) introduced the D.C. Student Opportunity Scholarship Act of 1997 (then-Representative Richard Armey (R-TX) introduced similar legislation in the House). The legislation would have provided scholarships of up to $3,200 for the District's poorest students in kindergarten through 12th grade to attend a public, private, or religious school of choice in the metropolitan area. The Senate approved the bill by voice vote on November 9, 1997, and the House passed it by a vote of 214 to 206 on April 30, 1998. However, President Bill Clinton vetoed the measure in May 1998.[5]

Three days after the President's veto, The Washington Post published the results of a May 1998 poll of District residents that found significant support for using federal dollars to send children to private or religious schools: 65 percent of the District's African-Americans surveyed who had incomes under $50,000 favored the option. Overall, 56 percent of District residents supported school choice.[6]

A 1999 Heritage Foundation analysis of African-American students in Catholic and public schools in the District found that, when demographic and socioeconomic factors were held constant, the children in Catholic schools performed better in mathematics on the national assessments than did their public school counterparts. In fact, the performance gap increased considerably as higher grade levels were considered: While 4th grade students in Catholic schools scored 6.5 percent higher than their public school peers, 8th grade students in Catholic schools scored more than 8.2 percent higher than their public school counterparts. The average 8th grade black Catholic-school student outscored 72 percent of students in public schools.[7]

A 2000 study of 810 students who received the Washington Scholarship Fund scholarships found that, after one year, African-American students in grades 2 to 5 who transferred to private schools outperformed their public school counterparts by 7 percentage points on math tests and 3 points on reading tests. The study also found that, while nearly half of private school parents gave their children's schools an "A," only 15 percent of public school parents did.[8]

A 2000 Harvard University study of students in grades 2 to 8 reported that African-American students in the District of Columbia, New York City, and Dayton, Ohio, had outscored their public school classmates since transferring to private schools with the help of privately funded vouchers. The report compared public and private school students who had similar family backgrounds. D.C. students who had transferred showed the greatest advances, moving 9 percentile points ahead of their public school peers in combined reading and math test scores.[9]

In October 2001, the D.C. Board of Education considered opening charter schools for students with special needs to rein in special education costs. Throughout the preceding school year, the District had educated 1,830 special-needs children in private schools at an average public expense of $36,000 per pupil per year.[10]

Within days of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision supporting the use of vouchers in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) and then-U.S. Representative Richard Armey (R-TX) introduced the D.C. Student Opportunity Scholarship Act of 2002 (H.R. 5033/S. 2866) to provide vouchers worth up to $5,000 for students to enroll in a public, private, or parochial school. "The Supreme Court has spoken on educational choice," Representative Armey declared when he introduced his bill. "Now it's time for Congress to do its part on behalf of low-income parents that simply want a better education for their children. Needy children in the District and across the country have waited long enough."[11] The bills were referred to committee but progressed no further. Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) supported the initiative, saying that "I remain convinced that private school choice, while clearly not the solution to what ails our public schools, is a reform idea worth testing, particularly while we are waiting for the No Child Left Behind Act to take hold, and could be a temporary lifeline for poor students who would otherwise be trapped in chronically failing schools."[12]

According to a study released in October 2002 by New American Schools, students at the KIPP DC:KEY Academy--one of the country's Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) charter schools--achieved significant gains in academic achievement in 2001. The KIPP DC/Key Academy, which was opened in 2001, serves predominantly low-income children in Southeast D.C. Students at this school improved their Stanford 9 reading scores by 12 points and their math scores by 24 points. The first KIPP school opened in 1994 in Houston, Texas. In 2002, 10 KIPP schools were in operation, and plans were underway to open 19 more in 2003. Hallmarks of these schools are a longer school day, rigorous academic standards, and strong discipline.[13]

In early 2003, President George W. Bush proposed that funds be included in the FY 2004 budget for a pilot voucher program in the District. Several prominent D.C. leaders voiced their support, including D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) and D.C. School Board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz. In an interview with The Washington Post, the mayor explained, "We've got a model we've been using for 140 years. I think it's time to try something else." Kevin P. Chavous (D), D.C. Council member and chairman of the Committee on Education, Libraries, and Recreation, backs vouchers as part of a proposal to increase support for charter and traditional schools. According to Chavous, "No school bureaucracy will reform itself internally. It only comes through pressure. And the most effective form of pressure is choice."[14]

Congress passed legislation creating the District's first publicly funded scholarship program on January 22, 2004. Similar to a program proposed in 2003 by Representative Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Senator Gregg (H.B. 684 and S. 4, respectively), the $13 million program provides low-income students with vouchers to attend a private school of choice. Students from families whose annual income is at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty line are eligible. The vouchers is worth up to $7,500, more than half of the approximately $12,000 spent per pupil in public schools. Researchers from Georgetown University and Westat will evaluate the program over the next five years.[15] In September 2004, 1,025 students were placed in 53 private schools through the voucher program.[16]

D.C. officials reported in July that over 260 students were attending District charter schools while residing in neighboring Maryland. Between 1998 and 2003, enrollment in District charter schools increased fourfold, from 3,632 to 13,743. The D.C. school board protested the use of District tax dollars to provide school choice for non-District students.[17]

Despite the number of charter schools in the District and the new voucher program, students had few schools to transfer to for the 2004-2005 school year. Over half of District students (about 33,000) are eligible for transfers under the No Child Left Behind Act, but there are fewer than 1,000 available seats, all in elementary schools.[18]

As Congress considered FY06 appropriations, several leaders, including Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), also considered expanding the District's voucher program. In June, senators reviewed proposals to increase the voucher amount and allow students to use the vouchers at private schools outside of the District.[19]

In May, D.C. Superintendent Cliffored B. Janey announced that 10 District schools would be closed in the fall. The closings come as District enrollment has decreased significantly in the past half-decade. The D.C. School Board will vote on the closings at the end of June.[20]