Hundreds Leave Public Schools With Privately Funded Vouchers

By Mark Walsh

Hundreds of children from low-income families are enrolling in private schools for the first time this fall, thanks to a boomlet in local voucher programs funded by businesses, private foundations, and individual donors.

Pupils in Atlanta, Little Rock, Ark., Milwaukee, San Antonio, and a number of other cities are the beneficiaries of an emerging movement designed to provide low-income parents with more choice in education.

"The business community is tapping into a huge market of low-income people who want to take their kids out of the public schools, but don't have the resources,'' said Allyson Tucker, the manager of the center for educational policy at the Heritage Foundation,...