Calls Tout Availability of Vouchers: Nonprofit Group Says Response Mostly Positive
By Jennifer Smith Richards, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio
Feb. 1–In a nondescript office building with bare walls and with folding tables and office chairs as the only furniture, folks are dialing cell phones and making a pitch.
“Did you know that your child is likely eligible to apply for a scholarship that would allow you to send them to a private school for free?” they ask. “Can we send you an information packet?”
Most parents say yes. They want to know more about a product that School Choice Ohio is, in a sense, selling: private-school vouchers.
Since December, the nonprofit advocacy group has called about 64,000 Ohio families to tout EdChoice, the 2-year-old statewide voucher program. Callers have reached 11,960 of them, and 84 percent said they wanted to know more, the group said. Calls are being made to Columbus families now.
The voucher enrollment period for next school year begins today.
“I’ve found as we call more and more, people have heard more about it — word of mouth,” said Janice Hoffman, a former charter-school teacher and administrator who is working in the call center. “Grandparents, in particular, have been very receptive. And I’ve had parents crying on the phone, praisin’ Jesus.”
The organization has taken on the task of spreading the word about vouchers because this year the state didn’t. In the EdChoice program’s first year, the Ohio Department of Education was directed to inform parents and was given money to do so. It didn’t get that money this year.
Soon, 20 people will work in the call center, in an office building near Kenny and Ackerman roads, making about 5,000 calls per day. Callers aren’t selling anything, so the National Do Not Call Registry doesn’t apply to them.
“It’s so frustrating to know there are so many families out there that don’t know about the program and don’t know their child’s eligible,” said Theodore J. Wallace, the group’s outreach coordinator. “No one else is going to tell them.”
School Choice Ohio supports both vouchers — a state program that pays so that children at struggling public schools can afford private-school tuition — and charter schools, which are public, tuition-free schools that typically are privately run. Traditional public schools usually have opposed both options, saying they siphon away students and state dollars.
Next school year, there will be 59 voucher-eligible schools in Columbus, two in Groveport Madison and one in Whitehall.
When School Choice Ohio made public-records requests to get the phone numbers of parents or guardians of students who attend poor-performing schools, some districts weren’t quick to hand them over. At least one district with voucher-eligible students, East Cleveland, continues to refuse, Wallace said. East Cleveland Superintendent Myrna Loy Corley didn’t respond to a phone call from The Dispatch asking why.
Parents in Lima bristled when School Choice Ohio called them, Lima schools spokesman Kevin Reeks said.
“Parents were concerned that they were receiving calls at home, and the callers knew their children’s name, grade and where they went to school,” he said. “And there was a real tone in the call about how their children went to failing schools. Our parents were quite offended by that.”
The group’s mission isn’t to cast aspersions on traditional public schools, Wallace said. It’s simply to inform parents of their options.
“It looks like it’s us and them, but it isn’t,” said Wallace, who said traditional districts employ a “disinformation campaign” to discredit the voucher program.
Districts have to fight back, said Sue Taylor, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers. Schools are forced to engage in marketing campaigns to compete with charters and the voucher program, she said.
“It’s really a very sad day in our state and our country when we’re pitting traditional public-school families against private-school families,” Taylor said. “This cutthroat competition does nothing to strengthen our common schools. It’s just out-and-out bad public policy and an unwise use of public tax dollars.”
Not every parent who gets a School Choice call wants to hear about the voucher program. About 16 percent of those reached aren’t interested, call center figures show.
“A few people (I call) say, ‘I really love my teacher and my school,’ and I say, ‘Good for you,’ ” said Carol Scott, one of the call-center workers.
jsmithrichards @dispatch.com
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