ASSEMBLY PANEL OKS SCHOOL-VOUCHER BILL.

Byline: Jennifer Kerr Associated Press 

Gov. Pete Wilson's plan to let 290,000 students in bad public schools use state money to transfer to private and other public schools was easily approved Wednesday by an Assembly committee.

The Education Committee voted 8-2 to send the bill by Speaker Curt Pringle, R-Garden Grove, to the Appropriations Committee.

The bill is expected to move easily through the Republican-dominated Assembly, but is likely to run into trouble in the Senate, which has a Democratic majority.

``Despite reforms, there are still far too many California children stuck in schools that are not performing, schools that are failing,'' said Pringle, whose own two children attend a private Christian school in Orange County.

Opponents said the plan, like a broader voucher initiative rejected by voters in 1993, would give taxpayer funds to religious schools, support schools that can discriminate, and make the bad schools worse by cutting funding and taking away motivated students.

``Until we try to fix those schools, we think it's premature to abandon them,'' said Bob Wells of the Association of California School Administrators.

The bill would allow students attending elementary and high schools that have the lowest 5 percent scores in the state on standardized tests to transfer to a different public school in the district or another district or to a private school. If the student moved to a private school, it would get the lower of the school's tuition or 90 percent of the state per-pupil funds going to public schools, about $3,300.

The students themselves would not have to have low test scores and the parents would not have to be low-income. Wilson's office says about 290,000 of the state's 5.5 million public school students could use the scholarships.

Voters in 1993 rejected Proposition 174, which would have given all students a $2,600 voucher to attend any public or private school. Efforts to put a similar initiative on the November 1996 ballot have been dropped.

The Republican governor in his January State of the State address proposed what he called ``opportunity scholarships'' to students in ``failing schools.''

``I believe there are parents of children today in schools that do not perform,'' Pringle said. ``I think those parents need choices for their children. They cannot afford to send their children somewhere else.''

``The fundamental issue here is failing kids and failing schools. Should (children be left) in low-performing schools while we fix them?'' said Kevin Teasley of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture in Los Angeles, a backer of Proposition 174.

Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, said she was concerned that the private schools getting state money could discriminate in gender, religion and disability and would not have to hire credentialed teachers.

``Your proposal has very few safeguards about the quality of the public school,'' she said.

``We have the basic premise that those parents will make that choice,'' Pringle said. ``We are making an assumption that parents care for their children.''