Supporters of state-financed tuition vouchers say they don’t need legislation to start a voucher program in Kansas.

They say it already exists.

Sen. Kay O’Connor, an Olathe Republican, and Mary Gomez, an Olathe resident who has been involved in school-finance lawsuits, say they’ve found the “smoking gun” to speed a campaign to divert state education funds to help parents send their children to private and parochial schools.

The pair say a long-forgotten, obscure document Publication 256 outlining the Kansas Legislature’s interpretation of a 1966 amendment to the Kansas Constitution removes any doubt private school vouchers should be legal in Kansas.

Piggyback that on a U.S. Supreme Court decision in July upholding Ohio’s school voucher law, and the duo is primed for an aggressive round of wrangling over vouchers in the Kansas Legislature.

“I’ll introduce my school voucher legislation again,” O’Connor said. “When it comes to the constitutionality of it, it is.”

Gomez, who put her three children through private schools, said she stumbled across Publication 256 about 10 years ago.

Her conclusion: “It says vouchers are permitted under the constitution.”

No ‘slam dunk’

Not so fast, said Mark Tallman, assistant executive director for advocacy at the Kansas Association of School Boards.

“I don’t see that as a slam dunk at all,” he said.

His interpretation of Publication 256 suggests religious schools cannot control any part of public school funds.

“Period,” Tallman said.

Atty. Gen. Carla Stovall said in a nonbinding opinion two years ago that vouchers for religious kindergarten through 12th grade private schools would violate the Kansas Constitution, which says, “No religious sect or sects shall control any part of the public education funds.”

But Tallman and Stovall could talk themselves blue in the face and not convince O’Connor and Gomez they’re on the wrong track.

Their pro-voucher campaign will lean heavily on several clauses in the Legislative Council’s report explaining legislative intent and definitions to the 1966 amendment. It was passed by Kansas voters 280,400 to 211,027.

The document

Key passages:

“Present constitutional interpretation (1965) is that neither the existing constitution nor the proposed amendment prohibits the distribution of public funds for the benefit of pupils in private parochial schools.”

“As long as the funds remain under public control they can be distributed to pupils attending private schools.”

“The child rather than the private organization, thus is benefited.”

Gomez said a Kansas voucher law would be legal if it allowed state public education funding to be given directly to students, or their parents, who would be responsible for deciding where it should be allocated.

Essentially, O’Connor said, Publication 256 indicates the link between church and state that causes controversy can be severed by a student’s family.

“It’s pretty clear that there was no intent to prohibit indirect funding that would go to the pupil and then follow them into private or religious schools,” O’Connor said.

Vouchers would have been the law of the land long ago, Gomez said, if it weren’t for “school districts that have such a grip on the Legislature.”

Indeed, O’Connor and Gomez should expect a spirited campaign against vouchers in the 2003 session.

Craig Grant, director of government relations for the Kansas-National Education Assn., said a voucher system wouldn’t emerge in Kansas unless all three branches of government agreed it was legal and proper.

In the short-term, he’s putting his faith in the political arena. The governor’s office and the Kansas House is up for grabs in November.

Question of control

“I’m hoping through the election and what I hope will be a good grass-roots movement, we can convince legislators they don’t want to pass such a thing,” Grant said. “We think a majority of Kansans don’t want to divert public funds.”

Brilla Highfill Scott, executive director of United School Administrators of Kansas, said the organization would object to a voucher program that eroded separation of church and state and lined the pockets of schools not subject to external regulation.

“We are very much opposed to money being funneled outside the public schools,” she said.

Tallman said voucher bills hadn’t generated much support during previous legislative sessions. There’s no reason to think Publication 256 will alter that situation, he said.

O’Connor said the anti-voucher lobby has proven powerful. The teachers’ unions fear a loss of clout, she said. Public district administrators worry they might lose their “cushy” jobs, she said. And the media’s support of “socialism,” in terms of government control of education, also undercuts public support for vouchers, she said.

It is those forces that inhibit a fair evaluation of vouchers in Kansas, O’Connor said.

“I’m not out to destroy public education,” she said. “It’s about who should be in control of decisions. I believe parents need to be in that position not necessarily the government.”