Parental prerogatives

Special Issue | With a growing number of voucher and tax-credit programs, 2005 has been the "most successful year yet" for advocates of school choice | Lynn Vincent

Carson Smith was 22 months old when he slipped into silence. In 2000, the jabbering, Utah preschooler gradually stopped answering to his name and looking at people when they spoke to him. Then he stopped speaking altogether.

The diagnosis: Autism.

Carson's mom, Cheryl Smith, quit her job to care for Carson, and the family enrolled the boy in an intensive, full-time program called the Pingree School for Autistic Children. As a special-needs child, Carson attended using state dollars—that is, until he turned 5. Then public funding dried up, leaving the Smiths to face Pingree's $23,000-a-year tuition bill alone.

In 2003, they drained their savings account to pay it, then began asking questions: Why would the state fund a preschool for special-needs children, but financially abandon those same kids when they reached kindergarten? And why, Mrs. Smith said, "were we paying taxes for Carson to go to the neighborhood school when he couldn't go there? Why couldn't we take that money and use it in a specialized setting where he could get some real help?"