Restoring School Choice

Saving the School Choice Crusade from Extremism

Civic Way continues its focus on public education issues. This essay is about reclaiming the school choice movement. In the last essay of the public education series, we will address one more issue, accountability. The author, Bob Melville, is the founder of Civic Way, a nonprofit dedicated to good government, and a management consultant with over 45 years of experience improving public agencies.

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Expanding … programs for a few without accountability … undermines our constitutional and moral duty to educate children. – Texas GOP Representative John Raney

Introduction

Since 2021, states with the most extreme rightwing political leadership have enacted the nation’s most reckless universal voucher programs^[i]. These programs, devised by right-wing advocacy groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Heritage Foundation, use similar titles containing similarly lofty (and misleading) words like Choice, Opportunity and Education.

Make no mistake. Universal voucher programs have little to do with choice or opportunity and take a decidedly elitist approach to education. Universal vouchers, a toxic blend of political extremism and religious zealotry, divert public funds from public to private schools. They benefit wealthy families at the expense of the needy. And, by helping those who don’t need it, universal vouchers steal hope from those who do.

The Extreme Risks of Universal Vouchers

The universal voucher programs are riddled with flaws that jeopardize public budgets, public schools, businesses, communities and children. Some of these flaws are outlined below.

• Democracy – Diverting public education funds to private individuals^[ii] will treat public education as a private commodity, undercut efforts to prepare children for citizenship and damage democracy in the process.

• Public waste – Throwing money at private schools^[iii] without adequate guidance or controls^[iv] will dramatically increase public spending^[v] and strain state and local government budgets^[vi].

• Public schools – Funding private schools will irrevocably weaken traditional public schools, causing teacher layoffs, program cuts, facility deterioration and even the closure of many traditional schools.

• Private schools – Universal voucher programs will make it much easier for participating private schools to ignore public standards and subsidize private tuition increases^[vii].

• School choice – Many private pop-up schools, after feeding at the public voucher trough, and undercutting quality options, will fail, effectively reducing meaningful competition and school choice.

• Discrimination – Allowing publicly funded voucher schools to discriminate against students for virtually any reason^[viii] will resegregate schools, creating one system for the anointed and one for everyone else.

• Religion – Showering funds on intolerant church schools^[ix] will violate the US Constitution, most state constitutions^[x] and Judeo-Christian principles, and, in the long run, weaken public faith in organized religion.

• Special education – Reducing public school funding will limit special education programs and inevitably limit offerings to disabled children in the surviving public schools.

• Community – Many communities, especially those where school districts are large employers, will be unduly harmed by public school funding cuts and many counties will be forced to raise taxes or cut services

• Economic – Universal voucher programs will make it tougher for in-state businesses to find qualified workers and out-of-state corporations to move there.

• Accountability – Weakening oversight standards and reporting requirements for voucher schools will make it virtually impossible to identify the successes, discard the failures and improve student outcomes.

Voucher advocates claim—with little evidence—that voucher programs improve educational quality. To support their claim, they highlight private schools that outperform public schools, but without considering student variances. They gloss over the dubious quality of many private pop-up, religious and home schools. They also ignore initial research that raised serious questions about the efficacy of vouchers^[xi].

Strategies for Restoring Public School Choice

Rebuilding a Bipartisan Education Reform Coalition

Sincere school choice advocates—unlike those pushing anti-public school vitriol and universal vouchers on an unsuspecting public—have a point. The US has essentially used the same K-12 school model since the late 19th century. That model served us well until the 1983 Nation at Risk study convinced us otherwise.

Our nation has explored and tested new ideas ever since. Until recently, our reform efforts have been largely nonpartisan (or bipartisan). The accountability-based reform initiatives, for example, spanned four presidential administrations (i.e., Bush I and II, Clinton and Obama). However, this bipartisan era is no more.

Instead, right-wing extremists decided to weaponize the public education issue for political purposes. They hijacked the school choice movement to vilify public school educators, demonize teachers’ unions and foist universal (unaccountable) vouchers on GOP-dominated state legislatures. Even if universal vouchers don’t choke the life from public education, they will have a chilling effect on future bipartisan reform efforts.

To restore our bipartisan approach to reforming public schools, we must work together to forge a balanced public education model. One that moves us from the traditional one-size-fits-all public education model but without abandoning public accountability. One that diversifies educational options for students but serves our democracy and nation. One that reconciles individualism with the public interest^[xii].

Political leaders should put public education ahead of their ambitions. Reestablish the nation’s bipartisan commitment to quality public education. Gather input from parents, teachers, principals, community leaders and business leaders. Redefine the nation’s goals for public education. Outline the foundational elements of a new public-private model for our nation’s public schools. In short, replace accusations with solutions.

Preparing the Nation for School Choice

The universal voucher zealots treat the school choice issue as binary, but this is mere propaganda. The question is not if we have school choice—we already do. The real questions are far more complicated. Do we have enough choices? Do we have the right choices? How much school choice can we afford?

Instead of diverting funds from public education to suspect private schools, we should fully fund a public education system that offers genuine competition. Open enrollment. Proven traditional public school options such as magnet, language arts, college/career prep and civic education programs. Cost-effective privatized instructional options such as remote, technology, special education and advanced STEM programs. A full array of robust, cost-effective charter schools.

What steps should we take to determine the potential funding requirements for such a model? Assess current educational offerings, especially traditional public school and charter school options. Ascertain how families make academic choices for their children. Design an agile, balanced public-private educational model, outlining its core and supplemental services and the most cost-effective ways to deliver those services.

Instead of throwing money at private entities, we must build sufficient private market capacity for educational services that the public sector cannot efficiently provide. Develop model long-term contracts that will enable the public to hold private firms accountable. Fully empower independent government agencies to oversee the public education system, enforce uniform standards, protect the taxpayer and advance the interests of children.

Finally, we must equip families with the resources they need to make informed school choices for their children. A digital tool to help them rank choice factors^[xiii] and compare diverse school options. A website and hotline for parental inquiries. A one-stop parental resource center for assisting parents with school decisions. A structured survey mechanism for compiling community, parental and student input. Enacting school choice programs without such resources is little more than a raid on the public treasury.

Making Public Education Offerings More Competitive

We are long past the stage when it is sufficient for public school advocates to decry the risks of universal vouchers and the many transgressions of the warped school choice movement.

Government has a responsibility to ensure that our public education system meets the diverse needs of our nation’s youth. Staying abreast of these dynamic needs will require a tough reassessment of public and private roles and careful consideration of pro-competition strategies such as the following:

• Make local school districts responsible for helping parents find the right academic fit for children.

• Conduct ongoing market research to track public-private school enrollment preferences and trends.

• Develop long-term forecasting tools to help public school districts tailor their academic offerings^[xiv].

• Diversify traditional public school offerings (e.g., magnet programs and service outsourcing).

• Promote neighborhood schools (e.g., stress community building and individual convenience factors).

• Strengthen open enrollment policies and practices for public schools^[xv].

That universal voucher programs are an assault on public education writ large is no secret. What is often overlooked is that they also represent a betrayal of charter schools, once the embodiment of school choice.

Public education advocates should embrace the charter school idea. Empower independent state oversight bodies to open, audit, fine and close charter schools. Align charter school and relevant traditional public school standards. Invest in the expansion of proven, high-quality public charter schools. Tailor charter school offerings to local needs and facilitate the co-location of charters at under-utilized public school facilities.

Stepping Back from the Universal Voucher Abyss

Most states have voucher or ESA programs but most of these have reasonable guardrails, not just to minimize waste but to protect our children. However, the universal voucher programs have few if any guardrails. Their intent is not to reform our public education system but to dismantle it.

For those of us who believe that our nation’s future depends on the strength of our public education system, our duty is clear. To stop the bleeding, we must seek the termination of every universal voucher program. At the very least, we must demand a moratorium, the suspension of public spending on unaccountable vouchers until we have fully funded quality education and genuine school choice for all children.

What might the guardrails for universal vouchers and ESAs entail? Common sense eligibility limits^[xvi]. Funds for qualified private schools^[xvii], but not micro-schools, home schools or parents. Funding caps. Scholarship stacking bans. Transition mitigation measures^[xviii]. Consistent voucher school reporting. A rigorous statewide accountability system that enables states to track private voucher school performance and terminate grants to private voucher schools failing to comply with uniform academic and reporting standards^[xix].

Final Thoughts

The extreme right’s two-step approach^[xx] to selling universal vouchers is a grave threat to our national future. If not ended, universal vouchers will achieve what they were always intended to achieve, the unraveling of our public education system. By disguising extreme ideology and theology with moderate school choice rhetoric, universal vouchers have become the classic wolves in sheep’s clothes.

This does not mean that we should return to some outmoded, rigid public education model. Those days are gone. Rather, we should continue to pursue a pluralistic—but fully funded—education model that serves the needs of an increasingly diverse student population. A model that empowers state and local government to deploy competitive public and private resources. A model that quickly adapts to the challenges of a rapidly changing competitive world. A model that ensures the most cost-effective use of scarce public funds.

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^[i] These states include Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ohio, Utah and West Virginia.

^[ii] According to Save Our Schools Arizona’s report, “The Impacts of Universal ESA Vouchers: Arizona’s Cautionary Tale,” over 52 percent of the students attending private school under Arizona’s universal voucher program—the Empowerment Scholarship Account program—live in state's richest zip codes.

^[iii] In Arizona, taxpayers must absorb the cost of ESA students who never attended public school ($6,900 per K-8 pupil and $7,700 per high school pupil). Some states spend more on voucher students than traditional public school students. Per a November 2023 report from Arizona’s Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC), that state spends more on educating an ESA student than a traditional public school student.]

^[iv] Universal voucher programs often eviscerate guardrails (e.g., by 2027, Florida will no longer limit the number of home-schooled students receiving public funds of $8,500 per year per student).

^[v] According to a 2023 study commissioned by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Education Law Center, and Public Funds Public Schools, school voucher programs in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin dramatically increased state costs between 2008 to 2019.

^[vi] According to Save Our Schools Arizona’s report, “The Impacts of Universal ESA Vouchers: Arizona’s Cautionary Tale,” Arizona’s universal voucher program is estimated to cost taxpayers over $900 million this school year, a year in which the state has incurred an $835 million budget deficit.

^[vii] In Iowa, reports document that many existing private schools raised their tuition after the state enacted its ESA.

^[viii]  Grounds for discrimination include religion, abortion, pregnancy, disability, LGBTQ+, English as Second Language and immigration status.

^[ix] North Carolina’s Tabernacle Christian School, founded by Baptist Minister Bobby Leonard (the man who said rapists should be acquitted if the victims wore short dresses) and now run by his son, has received over $3.3 million in state voucher funds since 2018 (and over $1 million last year).

^[x] Article VI, Section 2 of Ohio Constitution states that “no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state.” The Oklahoma Constitution explicitly forbids publicly funded schools from affiliating with a religious sect.

^[xi] According to a 2020 Chalkbeat report, voucher programs in Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, and Washington D.C. initially hurt student achievement.

^[xii] Two educational pluralism models include John Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and Indianapolis’ neighborhood-based school reforms.

^[xiii] Factors include student outcomes, graduation rates, college enrollment, job readiness, test scores, curricula, class size, diversity, teacher quality, affordability and special education courses.

^[xiv] These forecasting tools should track relevant factors (e.g., student data, school capacity, academic needs, community needs and enrollment demands).

^[xv] Open enrollment options include publicizing available slots by school and grade, banning transfer fees, allowing transfers that won’t create capacity and fiscal issues, creating special market zones for high school pupils, improving open enrollment reports and auditing open enrollment practices.

^[xvi] Eligibility should be limited to students from low-income families, with special unmet needs or attending failing schools.

^[xvii] Qualified schools could be defined as those meeting public standards (e.g., secular, accredited by approved entity, certified teachers, full tuition and fee transparency, acceptable admission and non-discrimination policies, compatible curriculum and instructional practices.)

^[xviii] Potential mitigation measures include phasing vouchers by area, isolating vouchers as a distinct budget line item, assigning voucher students to public school districts for reporting purposes, providing transition funds to public schools, preserving local public school funding for at least three years, and providing guidelines to local administrators for navigating loss of voucher students.

^[xix] Participating private voucher schools should be required to post academic standards, lesson plans, reading materials and test scores for each class.

^[xx] The first step is to discredit public schools with false accusations and contrived issues like CRT. The second step is to hype the benefits of vouchers.