Debate heats up over ed-voucher eligibility

Lawmakers grilled education leaders Friday, questioning whether the State Office of Education's rule to dole Utah's premiere education vouchers jibes with their intent.

In the end, school officials agreed their task force, meeting to improve rules implementing the Carson Smith Special Needs Scholarships, will take lawmakers' concerns into consideration.

The scholarships, named after a boy attending the $23,000-a-year Carmen B. Pingree School for Children With Autism, were created in March to help parents choose the best education for children with disabilities. They got $3.9 million in state funding; parents can receive up to about $5,500 per child.

The State Board of Education, which supported the bill in the 2005 Legislature, created rules on how the program would work. But its efforts have been met with threats of legal challenges from school choice advocates Education Excellence Utah.

At issue is student eligibility. Public school students with disabilities are likely eligible. But students in private schools now either must attend one specializing in serving students with disabilities, as the law states, or transfer to one or go back to public schools to become eligible.

The state board's rule defined specialized schools as those where 80 percent of the students have disabilities, or that are accredited as a special-purpose school serving students with disabilities.

Therein lies the rub.

Some Administrative Rules Review Committee lawmakers called the 80 percent rule arbitrary. After all, they said, a hospital might specialize in cardiology because it has the expertise to help those patients, even if 80 percent of its patients aren't lined up for heart surgery.

They say the state rule violates the law's intent.

"The concern (is) . . . those students who need to be served," said Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper.

But state education office officials say their board is crafting the rule to meet that intent — and all other restrictions contained in the law and legislative debates leading up to it. They say the law clearly narrows the field of scholarship recipients in hopes of helping those most in need.

"It's not a simple, easy bill to implement," State Associate Superinten-

dent Ray Timothy said. "The intent is more restrictive than to open it up to all students qualifying for (special education)."

The 80 percent rule was approved last week as an emergency measure. The board wants to explore other ways to approach the voucher distribution but still allow parents to apply for scholarships (the deadline is July 1).

The State Board of Education is scheduled to meet July 13 and 14 in Cedar City. Timothy said the board will discuss a rule change.

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E-mail: jtcook@desnews.com