Education

Vouchers on the Ballot

July 10, 2002 1 min read
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Ballot measures that would have led to publicly financed voucher systems have been put to voeter and defeated in the following states. No such statewide ballot proposal has won voter approval.

California, 2000
Proposition 38 would have provided state- financed vouchers of at least $4,000 per child to offset tuition at private schools, including religious schools.

Yes: 29% No: 71%

Michigan, 2000
Proposal 1 would have offered vouchers of approximately $3,300 each to parents of students in school districts in which fewer than two-thirds of high school students graduate within four years. Families could have used the vouchers at private schools, including religious schools.

Yes: 31% No: 69%

Washington, 1996
Initiative 173 would have provided students with vouchers to use at any eligible public or private school. The amounts would have been required to equal 55 percent of per-pupil spending in the previous school year, or about $3,400.

Yes: 36% No: 64%

California, 1993
Proposition 174 would have provided parents with vouchers worth at least half the amount spent on each public school student in the state, or about $2,500, to help pay for tuition at any “scholarship-redeeming school,” including secular and religious private schools.

Yes: 30% No: 70%

Colorado, 1992
Amendment 7 would have given parents vouchers valued at 50 percent of the average per-pupil expenditure in their children’s local school districts, or about $2,500, for use in public or private schools, including religious schools.

Yes: 33% No: 67%

Michigan, 1978
Proposal H would have established a school voucher system that also would have removed a 1970, voter-approved ban on providing public aid to private schools.

Yes: 26% No: 74%

Maryland, 1972
Question 18, was a referendum on a plan adopted by the state legislature in 1971 to create a state scholarship program for children attending approved non-public schools.

Yes: 45% No: 55%

A version of this article appeared in the July 10, 2002 edition of Education Week as Vouchers on the Ballot

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