Economic Policy InstituteBy Hilary Wething and Josh BivensMay 15, 2024Since the early 2000s, many states have introduced significant voucher programs to provide public financing for private school education. These voucher programs are deeply damaging to efforts to offer an excellent public education for all U.S. children—and this is in fact often the intention of those pushing these programs. In this post we argue that:
- Public education is worth preserving—it should be seen as one of the most important achievements in our country’s history and crucial for the social and economic welfare of future generations.
- The economic logic behind voucher programs is weak; it rests on ideological commitments to markets over public provision of goods and services, even in realms of activity where the virtues of markets do not hold—like public education.
- Most damagingly, introducing significant voucher programs has gone hand in hand with steep declines in public school spending relative to states that have not adopted these policies.
- This spending stagnation has had profound effects in generating larger “adequacy gaps” in school funding in voucher states.
- Paradoxically, even while they take resources away from public schools, many newly introduced voucher programs could result in more total state spending in coming years.
- This would be a particularly perverse result given the expansive research literature showing that vouchers do not improve educational outcomes. In essence, states that have introduced large-scale voucher programs are looking to substitute a more expensive and less effective system for educating kids than public education. The only reason for this policy thrust is ideology rooted in hostility to public education.
BINGO! So why are they pushing a system that doesn't work?
Vouchers reduce public school resources, but introduce large new fiscal obligations overallIt would be bad enough if the introduction of vouchers simply funneled some students into poorly performing private schools for a stretch of time. But vouchers also affirmatively drain resources from the entire public education system—resources that would reliably produce better outcomes for children if they had stayed in public schools. Paradoxically, while vouchers are associated with significant drains from public school resources, they could actually boost the total fiscal cost of state support for education over time by shoveling more and more resources to (poorly performing, on average) private schools.
They are strangling the public education system. The Learning Policy Institute (LPI) writes in Understanding the Cost of Universal School Vouchers: An Analysis of Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account Program,
In the 2022–23 school year, Arizona began implementation of a “universal voucher” program through which all school-age students are eligible for a voucher, and families can use public funding to underwrite private or homeschool education for their children. Universal vouchers in Arizona are an expansion of the existing Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program, which was targeted to students with special education needs or in specific circumstances (e.g., child of a military employee, living on a reservation, attending a low-rated school). Reported program costs of the expanded program have varied widely and often do not provide a clear explanation for the figures used.[...]This report outlines the cost estimates and calculations in detail. Findings include the following:
- Students who accepted ESAs who were previously educated in private schools or homeschool environments added a new cost to the state. On average, students who were previously enrolled in district schools also generate a new, but smaller, cost to the state, while students previously enrolled in charter schools generate a small savings. Costs are estimated for each. There may be some variability in these costs depending on students’ previous eligibility for supplementary funding (e.g., through household income or English learner status).
In other words the money when to the rich who could already afford to send their children to private, so they took money that would have gone to public schools and gave it to rich private schools!
The cost of the ESA program represents 8.8% of the $6.7 billion total Basic Student Aid funding in 2022–23. Based on data posted on the Arizona Department of Education’s website, the number of students using the voucher increased by 10,739 students (17.4%) in the 2023–24 school year. The increased enrollment has resulted in a total cost of the ESA program of at least $708.5 million.
That money is being siphoned off to school that can discriminate and to schools that toss out under achievers! In another Economic Policy Institute post, "State and local experience proves school vouchers are a failed policy that must be opposed"
Despite overwhelming evidence of the harms of voucher programs and the unpopularity of attacks on public education, right-wing anti-education privatization advocates have prioritized the creation or expansion of school voucher programs as a policy goal this year in statehouses across the country. As of March 2023, public education advocates are tracking voucher bills in at least 24 states. As of mid-April, universal voucher bills—which will allow all families, regardless of income, to use public funds to pay for private education—have passed in four states: Iowa, Utah, Arkansas, and Florida. Meanwhile, voucher expansion bills have failed in at least six states so far in 2023: Georgia, Texas, Idaho, Virginia, Kentucky, and South Dakota.
Speaking of Texas...
Texas AFTApril 26, 2024Governor Abbott’s “School Choice” Claims Don’t Hold Up to the Facts
Gov. Greg Abbott has recently made some bold claims about the impacts of voucher programs like Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) on public school funding.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Abbott stated that, “In 97% of states with school choice programs, funding for public schools has gone UP” and claimed this shows “School choice helps every student thrive.” He also asserted that “NO funds from public schools would be used for an ESA.”However, a careful look at the data and evidence from states with long-running voucher programs shows that Abbott’s claims simply do not hold up. In fact, the reality is the opposite. Even representatives of Abbott’s own Texas Education Agency (TEA) have privately admitted that vouchers would decrease funding for public schools.
And here is the kicker! Schools have fixed costs, electricity, heating and cooling, building maintenance, these are all fixed cost so as state funding decrease it squeezes the education part of the budget.
Abbott’s claim that “School choice helps every student thrive” is at odds with this growing evidence that vouchers can seriously undermine student learning, especially for the most vulnerable children.
Why are they sticking with this failed plan?
It is simply that the Republicans want to gut public education! They want to bring back education to the 1800s where schooling only covered Reading, 'Riting, and "Rithmatic for the working class while the privileged class can afford private schools. However, what were once called "Trade School" they want to expand.
I support fully funded public education. What concerns me is the amount of money spent and the poor results. For many years I heard it was difficult for kids to learn because of the environment, i.e., aged school buildings. My small city (200,000+) has been passing levies and constructing new modern buildings with all the bells and whistles. Hungry kids cannot learn, so there is an adequate free lunch program. Teachers are highly paid with the only exception may be new hires. Why are the kids doing well on standard tests? My wife and I adopted our immediate elementary school and have donated over 8,000+ books over the years; Averaging over 400 per school year. What concerns me is the lack of parental involvement. My wife, a retired elementary school teacher, use to identify lack of parental involvement when a child entering the system does not even know how to hold a book in his or hands. If public schools want to survive as a place of serious learning, the teachers and curriculum have to challenged those kids who thirst for knowledge. There are constant complaints by the business community that kids are coming to them lacking the basic skills required in the workplace.
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