How School Voucher Programs Hurt Students

Abbott is pushing hard for it this year without success thanks to Democrats and Rural Republicans.

https://time.com/6272666/school-voucher-programs-hurt-students/

By Joshua Cowen
April 19, 2023 7:05 AM EDT
Cowen is a Professor of Education Policy at Michigan State University

In recent months, state legislatures across the country have broadened efforts to subsidize private school tuition with taxpayer dollars. New proposals for these programs—collectively called school vouchers—have appeared in more than a dozen states and passed as major priorities for Republican governors like Kim Reynolds in Iowa and Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Arkansas. Since 2021, Arizona, Florida, Utah and West Virginia have also created or expanded voucher plans. Meanwhile, a handful states like Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio and Wisconsin have run voucher programs for years. But do school vouchers actually work? We need to focus on what research shows, and what that means for kids moving forward.

As an analyst who has studied these and other forms of school choice for nearly two decades, I’m in a good position to give an answer. And based on data from existing voucher programs, the answer is almost unambiguously negative.

Let’s start with who benefits. First and foremost, the answer is: existing private school students. Small, pilot voucher programs with income limits have been around since the early 1990s, but over the last decade they have expanded to larger statewide initiatives with few if any income-eligibility requirements. Florida just passed its version of such a universal voucher program, following Arizona’s passage in the fall of 2022. In Arizona, more than 75% of initial voucher applicants had never been in public school—either because they were new kindergartners or already in private school before getting a voucher. That’s a problem because many voucher advocates market these plans as ways to improve educational opportunities for public school children.

..Although small, pilot-phase programs showed some promise two decades ago, new evaluations of vouchers in Washington, D.C., Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio show some of the largest test score drops ever seen in the research record—between -0.15 and -0.50 standard deviations of learning loss. That’s on par with what the COVID-19 pandemic did to test scores, and larger than Hurricane Katrina’s impacts on academics in New Orleans.

..What explains these extraordinarily large voucher-induced declines? Aren’t private schools supposed to be elite educational opportunities? When it comes to private schools accepting voucher payments, the answer is clearly no. That’s because elite private schools with strong academics and large endowments often decline to participate in voucher plans. Instead the typical voucher school is a financially distressed, sub-prime private provider often jumping at the chance for a tax bailout to stay open a few extra years.

In Wisconsin, 41% of voucher schools have closed since the program’s inception in 1990. And that includes the large number of pop-up schools opening just to cash in on the new voucher pay-out. For those pop-up schools, average survival time is just 4 years before their doors close for good.

Here’s another problem: for most students, using a voucher is a temporary choice to begin with. In states that have reported data on the question–Indiana, Louisiana, and Wisconsin—roughly 20% of students leave voucher programs each year, either because they give up the payment or because schools push them out. In Florida, where vouchers just expanded, that number is even higher: around 30% per year in pre-expansion data.

...
And it’s not just the academic results that call into question any rhetoric around opportunities created by vouchers. Private schools can decline to admit children for any reason.

Voucher schools also rarely enroll children with special academic needs. Special education children tend to need more resources than vouchers provide, which can be a problem in public schools too. But public schools are at least obliged under federal law to enroll and assist special needs children—something private schools can and do avoid.

When we look at all the challenges to accessing education with these programs it’s clear that actually winning admission to a particular private school is not about parental school choice. It’s the school’s choice.

That is what research on school vouchers tells us. Vouchers are largely tax subsidies for existing private school families, and a tax bailout for struggling private schools. They have harmful test score impacts that persist for years, and they’re a revolving door of school enrollment. They’re public funds that support a financially desperate group of private schools, including some with active discriminatory admissions in place.

And public support for these programs is tenuous at best, highly dependent on state contexts. Recent media reports indicate that the latest voucher push is at least partly the result of well-funded campaigns led by Betsy DeVos, the conservative billionaire and U.S. Education Secretary under Donald Trump. DeVos has championed vouchers for decades as an alternative to traditional public education in what she, Trump, and other supporters call “government schools.”

But DeVos has acknowledged the poor track record for vouchers—at least when it comes to academic impacts. Asked about the dismal results of the Louisiana voucher plan while she was a public official, DeVos avoided detailed comment, but her answer back then was as good a summary as any that a voucher expert like me could provide. That program, she said, was “not very well-conceived.”

 

For the bold, I think you are referring to voucher schools/programs (aka as private school choice), which provide publicly funded scholarships (vouchers) to eligible students, allowing them to attend private schools. The eligibility of students is determined by the school itself. I agree that without a legal agreement between the school and an authorizing entity (such as an elected local school board or state education agency), the costs can spiral out of control without any meaningful criteria regarding the return on public investment.

I don't know the OK version, but there are also charter schools. Charter schools are publicly funded as well, operate more independently, and have more autonomy than traditional public schools. However, they are governed by a charter, which is a legal agreement between the school and an authorizing entity (such as an elected local school board or the state education agency). They are accountable for achieving specific academic outcomes, which is why these schools often have a strong academic focus, particularly in STEM subjects. Charter schools also have the flexibility to implement various educational approaches. They are typically open to all students within a designated area, and admission is usually determined through a lottery system, ensuring that the school's selection is not solely based on the school or parent's preference, although they may attempt to avoid certain types of students (to meet the academic criteria).

I find vouchers to be nothing much more than diverting already strained public funds to provide a break to students who are already in private schools. However, the implementation described in this article is even worse, as it funds poorly performing private schools. IMO, charter schools are better and play an important role in testing new ideas while being subject to similar requirements as public schools. TX have charter schools - I applied and our kids were accepted but I ultimately decided against it for other reasons.

 

Gov. Greg Abbott orders special session to begin Oct. 9 | The Texas Tribune

Gov. Greg Abbott has notified the Texas Legislature that a third special session will begin on Oct. 9.

A Sept. 26 letter signed by Abbott and addressed to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan, did not indicate the focus of this special session. But the governor has said repeatedly the next special session would focus on public education, including the issues of school vouchers and public school funding.


Abbott Demands Vouchers—Or Else (texasobserver.org)

From bullying legislators to co-opting church pulpits, the governor and the billionaires behind him are determined to defund public schools.


According to Tackett’s analysis of this pot of money, fewer than ten billionaires have invested millions in multiple pro-voucher PACs—the Texas Federation for Children, Texans for Educational Freedom, Coalition Por Texas, and the Family Empowerment Coalition—making these funders the nexus of Texas’ pro-voucher campaign. The cadre of wealthy backers Tackett examined include oil tycoon and vice chairman of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) Tim Dunn, private investor and TPPF board member Stacy Hok, co-founder of Weekley Homes and the Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR) Richard Weekley, TPPF founder James Leninger, and Texas Senator and president & CEO of Middleton Oil Mayes Middleton.

“There is a money component and there is an ideology component,” Tackett said. “Public education is a huge piece of the state budget. And if private institutions can get a piece of it… they stand to make a ton of money.”

To get there, they’re using cultural war rhetoric to convince parents that public schools are indoctrinating their children.

“It’s not just injecting religion in the public schools,” Tackett said. “It’s tearing down public schools so that they can get to the indoctrination they’re really looking for.”

Both oil tycoons Farris Wilks and Dunn have previously stated they want to “tear up, tear down public education to nothing” and replace the current system with private Christian schools. DeVos has stated that vouchers will “build God’s Kingdom.”