Families at Bruce-Monroe Elementary have a significant advantage in the competition for private school vouchers. It's one of 15 low-performing D.C. public schools whose students would get top priority in a weighted lottery for the new federal grants.
But as parents picked up their children from the school on Georgia Avenue NW last week, just days before the voucher application deadline, several of them said they had not applied and were not familiar with the program.
"I don't know about vouchers," said Paula Chambers, 38, as she left Bruce-Monroe with her 9-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. "I heard they were initiating something about that. . . . My son is in Advanced Placement. It would be good to send him to a school that would benefit him."
Chambers, who heard about vouchers recently from a teacher at the school, said she planned to call the office of Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) to get more information.
Juan Villegas, 30, said he is happy with Bruce-Monroe but interested in learning more about vouchers. "I never heard about that," said Villegas, who has a 10-year-old son at the school. "It sounds interesting."
As administrators of the nation's first federal voucher program try to recruit families to participate, they are facing a significant obstacle: Despite frequent news stories about the plan and an advertising campaign that included TV spots and signs on Metro, many parents seem to know very little about it. And in a number of other cases, families who expressed interest in vouchers have not come forward to apply.
The Washington Scholarship Fund, the nonprofit organization running the program, took applications last week at two large, low-income housing complexes as part of its outreach effort. The fund also extended the application deadline -- it's now Friday -- and plans to hold additional meetings with parents tomorrow at two locations in Southeast Washington. Voucher supporters have been circulating fliers and calling parents. They also plan to target parents at the low-performing schools this week.
"We really want to make sure all the families who qualify know about it," said Sally J. Sachar, president and chief executive of the scholarship fund. "It just is taking a while for this buzz to catch on. . . . This is just such a difficult population to reach."
Outreach workers who have been distributing fliers in low-income communities have encountered many people who are unfamiliar with the program, said Kaleem Caire, an official with Fight for Children, a nonprofit group that supports vouchers.
Many parents, Caire said, work long hours and have more pressing concerns. In some cases, he said parents mistakenly thought they had applied when they were put on a preliminary list of people interested in vouchers. Others said completing the paperwork would take too long.
"A lot of parents don't have enough information, don't have enough time to come and fill out applications," Caire said.
As of Friday, about 1,100 households had turned in applications, Sachar said. The scholarship fund estimates that those households want vouchers for about 2,000 children.
Those figures are far lower than the number of people who, through phone calls, meetings or other contact with voucher supporters, had indicated some interest in participating. The scholarship fund had compiled a database of about 4,000 such households, representing an estimated 8,500 children.
Students participating in the program, which was authorized by Congress in January after months of debate, will receive grants of as much as $7,500 each toward tuition and fees at private schools. There is enough money to provide grants to at least 1,700 students, although it is still unclear how many private school slots will be available. The deadline for private schools to decide whether to participate is Tuesday, several days later than originally announced.
For research purposes, the U.S. Department of Education wants to have at least twice as many applicants as vouchers. That would allow researchers to compare the academic achievement of voucher recipients with that of students who unsuccessfully seek vouchers in the lottery -- two groups of children with similar motivation.
Nina Shokraii Rees, a top Education Department official overseeing the voucher program, said that having such a control group is considered the "gold standard" in research but that other methods could be used to gauge the effect of vouchers if not enough people apply.
Rees said that the scholarship fund has been doing a good job getting parents to apply but that the program got off to a delayed start because Congress approved it later than expected. The scholarship fund was selected to run the program in March. The vouchers are for use in District private schools, by students in kindergarten through 12th grade, beginning in the fall.
"Had we had more time," Rees said, "I think we would have had much more opportunity to go into the community and get applicants."
Some of the parents who are not planning to apply for vouchers cited reasons other than lack of familiarity with the program.
Mary Jackson, who has two sons at Fletcher-Johnson Educational Center in Southeast -- another public school whose students would receive priority in applying for vouchers -- said that vouchers would not cover enough of the cost of private school and that "only the people with money can go." She also said she was concerned that private schools would be quick to expel students who did something wrong.
"It's a big hoax," Jackson said of the plan. "It's a bunch of hot air. . . . I'll find a better public school to send my kids to before I get a voucher."
Most applications received so far were turned in at four meetings the scholarship fund held last month at the Washington Convention Center. About 65 parents applied during the six sessions held last week at the housing developments, Langston Terrace in Northeast and Tyler House in Northwest. From 3 to 7 p.m. tomorrow, scholarship fund workers will go to the Barry Farm Community Center and Fletcher-Johnson.
Some parents have left meetings after discovering that their income was slightly higher than the program's cutoff.
But during a session Thursday at Tyler House, most parents concluded that they were eligible and stayed to fill out applications. Yolanda Howard, 23, applied for vouchers for her two sons, ages 5 and 7. She said that classes at their school, John F. Cook Elementary in Northwest, are too large and that the school does not offer enough extracurricular programs. "Maybe another school with better kids and different activities would be better," Howard said.
At Langston Terrace on Tuesday, Peat Evans, 45, and his wife, Andrea, made their way to a basement community room to fill out a voucher application. He said vouchers could help his 10- and 12-year-old sons, who attend a public charter school in the District.
Evans said he was surprised that an hour and a half into the session at Langston, he and his wife were the only applicants. "This room should be filled," he said. "We're sitting here in Langston Terrace. Who would better profit from these vouchers?"
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