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Capacity Issues Loom as Voucher Support Surges

Marlon Fincher, 17, shadowed a student at a Fort Wayne, Ind., Catholic high school after a new statewide voucher program inspired his family to look for an alternative to the prospect of a cross-town bus ride posed by the closing of his current high school. His parents, Sherry Fincher and Isaac Fincher, at rear, are looking into details of the program that will help low- to middle-income students attend private schools.

—Swikar Patel/The Journal Gazette/AP

By Mary Ann Zehr

State-level momentum in support of vouchers and tax credits that help students go to private schools highlights what, to this point, has been a largely theoretical issue: private school capacity to support voucher-financed enrollment.

Academics say the national supply of seats in secular and religious private schools is sufficient to meet short-term demand from existing voucher programs and from those being considered in states such as Pennsylvania. And if the voucher movement continues to gain traction, they say, new private schools may be established or old ones expanded, a pattern that took place with the spread of charter schools.

Longer term, however, meeting the demand for voucher-funded seats will depend on factors such as the scope of those programs, what grade levels they serve, and whether a program’s design encourages private school participation or tangles...