INDIANAPOLIS —As vouchers are approved and the school year begins, the cap that state legislative Democrats fought to place on the new program in its first two years looks like it won't be reached.
During this year's legislative session, House Democrats boycotted for five weeks and spent that time in a hotel in Urbana, Ill. They demanded concessions that included lower caps for the voucher program, which allows students to take public dollars to pay for tuition at private schools.
What Republicans gave them was a change that dropped the caps from 10,000 to 7,500 in the program's first year, and from 20,000 to 15,000 in the second year. After that, the program is uncapped.
The top House Democratic, Rep. B. Patrick Bauer of South Bend, hailed that change as a major example of the concessions Democrats won as a result of their hold-out.
"We've softened the blow to public schools," he said in a statement that included a title indicating Democrats believed they had succeeded in chipping away at Republicans' "radical agenda."
Now, though, the state has approved 2,800 vouchers – a number low enough that the cap is not relevant, even though applications could still come in through early September.
State Rep. Suzanne Crouch, R-Evansville, said Democrats' claims during the end of the legislative session that they'd affected the voucher program "has some reasoning to it" because Democrats did, indeed, succeed in lowering the caps by 25 percent.
"The fact of the matter is, nobody really could predict the quantity of vouchers that would be utilized by Hoosier parents and children," Crouch said.
"Therefore, at the time, that would have been a realistic claim. Not knowing what was going to be out there, it was a way to proceed a little more cautiously. In hindsight, it's kind of a hollow victory."
Keith Gambill, the president of the Evansville Teachers Association and a middle school teacher for 25 years, said he sees it differently.
"Those numbers I think first speak to the confidence that citizens of the state of Indiana have in the public school system," he said.
He said the number of voucher applicants is not surprising given the effort that those who advocated the new program have devoted to getting people enrolled.
"We've had many people contact us saying that they received postcards in the mail telling them about it. We have reports of blitzes at department stores where people shopped wearing t-shirts that said, 'Your child may qualify for a voucher,' and with a phone number on it," he said.
"Even with a blitz like that, parents in Indiana know their public schools are really working for the betterment of their children."
Those groups confirmed that they have, indeed, tried to build awareness of the voucher program.
"We have been working very hard to educate eligible families about their new options and it's exciting to know that thousands of kids will soon benefit from being at a school that best suits their needs," said Lindsey Brown, executive director of School Choice Indiana.
If other states' results are a precedent, Indiana could be poised to see significant growth in its voucher program in the coming years.
When Ohio launched its program in 2007, 2,713 students participated. Now, more than 13,000 students are using the vouchers.