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Voucher split reflects generation gap

By AL SWANSON

CHICAGO, June 27 (UPI) -- In a recent survey, 26 percent of African-Americans ranked education as the most important problem facing the nation, but school vouchers, approved by the Supreme Court Thursday, have created a generational divide in the black community, according to a political scientist.

About 75 percent of blacks age 35 or younger support vouchers, while 69 percent of black elected officials oppose them, said David A. Bositis, a researcher at the Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and author of the book "Changing of the Guard," a report on a national survey of black elected officials.

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Nearly 60 percent of all blacks supported vouchers, but just 44 percent over 50, and 49 percent of respondents with no children were against them.

Christian conservatives in the general population were the strongest supporters of school vouchers with 57 percent favoring such programs.

Bositis said no one really knows if vouchers, which allow students enrolled in public schools to use taxpayer funds to pay tuition at private and church schools, will be a panacea for America's education woes.

The majority of blacks, 57 percent, supported school vouchers in the 2000 survey, compared to 49 percent of the general population, but Bositis said there is an enormous divide over what is educational reality.

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"The Supreme Court ruling doesn't change anything," he said, "because in strict political terms older blacks, white seniors and white suburbanites oppose vouchers." He said every voucher referendum put on a ballot has failed.

The generation gap also was reflected among black elected officials, who generally are much older than the black population. Only 11 percent of black elected officials are under 40.

Bositis said the voucher debate in minority communities was not about the separation of church and state. "It's about point of view," he said.

Educators are worried about private schools "creaming" the best students from public schools, leaving the less gifted or problem students in an institutional dumping ground. For vouchers to work, he said, space must be available for public school students in private schools.

Vouchers would be like a tax break for parents of students already attending private or parochial schools, but most parents outside the system don't know the finances of it, he said.

There are about 54 million K-12 students in the county and only a few thousand attend private schools on pilot voucher programs in Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida.

Bositis said the political debate over school vouchers will be worth it if it focuses attention on poorly performing public schools.

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