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Heather Coffy, right center, leaves the St. Monica School with her children, left to right, Delano Coffy, 15, Alanna Marshall, 8, and Darius Coffy, 11, in Indianapolis. Students like Delano are at the heart of brewing political fights and court battles over whether public dollars should go to school vouchers to help make private schools more affordable. He was failing in his neighborhood public elementary school in Indianapolis until his mother enrolled him in a Roman Catholic school. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

School vouchers prompt court fights in US

Last updated Monday, April 9, 2012 - 11:15am

WASHINGTON — Students like Delano Coffy are at the heart of brewing political fights and court battles over whether public dollars should go to school vouchers to help make private schools more affordable.

Education, Vouchers, National Read more Comments

Pleasant View council OKs spring cleanup vouchers for green waste facility

Terrie L. Stephenson Standard-Examiner

Last updated Thursday, April 5, 2012 - 5:43pm

PLEASANT VIEW — The city council has decided to provide vouchers for residents to use at the Weber County green waste facility.

In previous years, Pleasant View has had a spring cleanup service, with city employees using city trucks to pick up green waste from the curb. Last year, the council did away with that project because of problems, including improper items left out for pickup and the time city employees spent searching for the green waste throughout Pleasant View.

City Government, Cleanup, Elderly, Green waste, Pleasant View, Savings, Senior Citizens, Seniors, Spring, Utah, Vouchers Read more Comments

Colorado school district has wealth, success and an eye on vouchers

Los Angeles Times, Nicholas Riccardi

Last updated Monday, February 21, 2011 - 12:20pm

DENVER -- Douglas County, a swath of subdivisions just south of here that is one of the nation's wealthiest, is something of a public school paradise.

The K-12 district, with 60,000 students, boasts high test scores and a strong graduation rate. Surveys show that 90 percent of its parents are satisfied with their children's schools.

That makes the Douglas County School District an unlikely frontier in the latest battle over school vouchers.

But a new, conservative school board is exploring a voucher system to give parents -- regardless of income -- taxpayer money to pay for their children to attend private schools that agree to abide by district regulations. If it's implemented, parents could receive more than $4,000 per child.

Education, Schools, Vouchers, National Read more Comments

Private school vouchers return to education agenda

David Harrison, Stateline.org

Last updated Thursday, December 23, 2010 - 10:28am

WASHINGTON -- A decade ago, almost any discussion about reforming the nation's public schools included vouchers. The idea of letting students use taxpayer dollars to attend private schools appealed to conservatives, who liked the notion of subjecting public schools to competition. Some Democratic mayors, frustrated with the slow pace of school improvement, also rallied behind vouchers.

Then, vouchers got overtaken by other ideas about how to shake up public schools. Unions vehemently opposed vouchers, arguing they would starve public schools of funding. Vouchers were left out of the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind law, making it difficult for programs to gain a foothold in school districts. More recently, the Obama administration left vouchers out of its Race to the Top grant program, even as it endorsed other reforms such as charter schools and pay-for-performance plans for teachers.

Now, private school vouchers seem poised to make a comeback. Newly elected Republican governors in Florida, Nevada and Wisconsin are pushing plans to give private school vouchers to thousands of families, as is Indiana's Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels. In all of those states but Nevada, Republicans control both houses of the state legislature, giving the voucher plans a good chance of passage.

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