[tag=CD | tag=□]
[tag=CD | tag=IN]
[tag=CD | tag=CD]
Over the last decade , the charter movement - which began as a single school with 20 students - has blossomed into more than 2,400 schools and half a million students across the country . " The sponsors committed a minimum of $ 5 million a year for 10 years to the program . Thirty-six voucher programs across the nation , operating under the umbrella group Children 's Educational Opportunity Foundation of America ( CEO America ) , pay up to half the tuition at private schools for more than 12,000 children from low-income families - with thousands more on waiting lists . Superfund was largely a response to the infamous discovery of an abandoned chemical dump beneath the residential community of Love Canal , N.Y.45 Across the country , fearful citizens demanded federal action to avert what was perceived to be a nationwide crisis : the existence of hundreds of sites at which chemical " time bombs " threatened to cause disease and death . Total tax credits authorized for both the scholarship and educational improvement programs credits are limited annually to $ 30 million - $ 20 million for the scholarship program and $ 10 million for educational improvement . The generosity of these taxpayers allows families looking for quality schools the option of expanding their choices to include not only the public and charter schools across town , but also the private schools in their own community . The president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers said the $ 5.25 million spent last school year on voucher students ( about $ 3,300 per student when other costs are considered ) was money being denied to public schools . The $ 50 million Edgewood project , to begin next fall , will be far more sweeping than any previous private voucher program . " While the issue of using tax-funded vouchers to provide school choice is being debated and contested in the courts , an increasing number of privately funded voucher programs across the nation are making it possible for children from low-income families to attend private elementary and secondary schools . In 1990 the Wisconsin Legislature approved a state-funded voucher program for Milwaukee . The fund , which provided 460 scholarships in the 1997-98 school year , added another 1,000 elementary school scholar ships for the 1998-99 school year . In Washington , D.C ., for example , 7,573 students , nearly 10 percent of the enrollment in the district , applied for 1,000 vouchers .