A total of 495 students will receive private-school tuition assistance from the Douglas County School District for the 2011-12 school year.
“I think it certainly shows interest in the program,” said Randy Barber, a Douglas County Schools spokesman. “Almost 500 kids is a good little segment of our population.”
A total of 543 applications to Douglas County’s new voucher program were received by the Thursday deadline, but 48 of the students did not meet the criteria. Students had to live in the school district and have attended a Douglas County public school for at least one year. Students already enrolled in private schools were not eligible.
The voucher program will give each student $4,575 — or 75 percent of the $6,542 in public per-pupil funding generated by state and local taxes — to attend one of 33 participating private schools. The district retains the remaining money for administration.
The district set a 500-student cap before it began accepting applications on May 2.
“This is a pilot program, it’s in its first year, so we didn’t really know at first what the interest would be,” Barber said.
Richard Komer, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice in Washington, D.C., said school districts around the U.S. are keeping an eye on Douglas County’s voucher program.
“There’s a lot of frustration with some of these school districts that would like to try this program, especially in states that don’t have a statewide choice program,” said Komer, who noted that compared with other states, Colorado gives school districts a lot of autonomy and that allowed Douglas County to create the program.
Some detractors question why their taxes should go toward helping pay for students’ private-school tuition. Others say that the amount of money is still not enough to cover tuition for the more expensive private schools, some of which charge up to $20,000 a year.
But Komer said many districts are interested in how the program fares because it saves districts money, gives more access to private schools and creates competition that could motivate public schools to improve.
“If Douglas County succeeds with this program, you might see other Colorado schools follow, and perhaps even districts in other states,” Komer said.
