Will Public Schools Benefit From Federal Vouchers?

Discussion has heated up about the federal voucher program and, specifically, whether blue states should opt in, and whether such opt-inning is inevitable. Colorado’s Jarid Polis and New York’s Kathy Hochul appear to be primed to take Trump Education Dollars. Folks are looking at Pennsylvania’s voucher-curious governor Josh Shapiro (I suggested he not, but that may not be enough to keep it from happening).

The temptation centers around two issues.

First, people from the state are probably going to take the tax credit that goes with contributing to the voucher program. Shouldn’t governors, the argument goes, make sure that money from their own state doesn’t end up going to some other state. It’s an odd argument, because without the tax credit, those dollars would have gone to DC and on to Lord Knows Where anyway, so it’s not like non-participating states are losing anything

Second is the assertion that some of this voucher money can be used to fund public schools and not just private ones. Consider, for instance, this slide show from a presentation by Marguerite Roza of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. Roza spent fifteen years at University of Washington’s Center for Privatizing Reimagining Public Education (taking one year off to work with the Gates Foundation) and took the Edunomics director’s job in 2012. Edunomics folks have thrown their weight behind some bad reformy ideas like the Super Sardinemaster teaching model (fire all the bad teachers and jam all the students into class with the good ones).

In her slide show, Roza gets one thing exactly right-- the Treasury Department hasn’t yet issued the exact rules for the federal vouchers (Education Freedom Tax Credits), so there’s a whole lot we don’t yet know.

What seems clear is that the mechanics of the federal vouchers (like all other vouchers) make it hard for public schools to get a piece of the funding stream. The donors hand money to the Scholarship Granting Organization, and the SGO hands the money to a famnily-- not the school.

So the missing link is the means of having the families hand their money to a public school.

They aren’t going to hand it over in the form of tuition, because it’s a free public school. Roza suggests there are three “scenarios” under which the public school could get its hands on some of that money.

Scenario 1: Homeschool or private school students who purchase add-ons from the district. I’m not clear what that might involve; at least in Pennsylvania, most of those students are entitled to get extras from their district for free, including everything from advanced classes to extracurriculars like band and theater and sports. In this state, I’m pretty sure the public school couldn’t charge an other-schooled student for anything that district students get for free.

Scenario 2: Disrtict students who sign up for “extras” like tutoring, summer programs, etc. Students could even choose “priced electives/clubs, e.g.financial literacy, robotics, possibly APs and VocEd, etc.” I don’t even know where to start with this. If some of these “extras” are being provided by third parties, klike a tutoring service, then the district doesn’t get a penny. But if we are talking about a district that offers some parts of its academic program only for those who will pay for it, that’s a crazypants model, a model that takes the “public” right out of public education.

Especially given some of her examples: “Below grade-level students can opt in to extended yearservices, small group supports, homework help, etc.” Are you behind in school? Maybe in danger of not graduating on time? Well, for just a few dollars more, you can get the rest of the education that we promised you!

But that’s really just the warm-up for

Scenario 3: Every district studentparticipates in a bundled set of“enhanced” services.

This is absolute dystopian bullshit, a literal use of the “subscription to unlock what ought to be regular features” model from the world of software. This image is taken straight from the slide:

“”Go get us some of that free federal money,” declares Imaginary School District, “or your kid will only have access to Public Education Basic, with none of the benefits of our Plus or Premium plans.” Look at Roza’s hypothetical list. AP classes? Full day K? Orientations!! Mental health!!! What the hell school district charges for that stuff? Surely she also meant to include lunches on her list.

This is like airline pricing (”You can buy a ticket to fly on our plane, but if you would like to bring luggage or sit down or breathe our air, that will be extra!”)

In her presentation, Roza suggested that this is all just a neat way to replace fund raisers. She also suggests that districts could require families to fill out a scholarship form as part of registration. She also recommends you do some arm-twisting of friends and relatives to make their contribution to the SGO that serves your kids. Which would seem to suggest a funding system that re-enforces the already-existing gap between wealthy and non-wealthy districts. Do you have lots of folks who can donate to your district’s SGO? No? Well, it’s Public Education Basic for you.

This sure seems like a recipe for creating a multi-tier school system, where options that ought to be part of the program become upsells. It’s a proposal to lower the floor for what constitutes a minimal free public education down into the basement, with steps out of that basement on a strictly pay-to-play basis. But there’s another downside.

This is also a recipe for putting local schools at the mercy of federal operators, because now a major revenue stream will flow through DC. That means federal leverage over local policy (”Get rid of those Naughty Books or you are cut off from federal voucher funds”). There is a certain genius in the federal vouchers in that should MAGA be swept out of office, the revenue flowing through this program will create pressure from even blue states to keep this right wing policy in place.

The federal voucher program does not support school choice; it’s a private school subsidy wrapped in a tax shelter. It’s not meant to help public schools, and it won’t, unless they are willing to bend themselves into a twisted fun-house mirror version of what a public school system is meant to be.

Historian Adam Laats points out that this kind of public subsidy for private schools has a history of failure, And a zillion people have pointed out that this voucher, like all voucher’s, is about the school’s choice, not school choice (because your right to choose is not nearly as sacred as school operators’ right to discriminate against any children for any reason).

And maybe that’s part of the point of these various attempts to sell the idea that this will be a subsidy for public schools as well as private schools. Except, of course, if the federal government really wanted to subsidize public schools, they could just do it or, at the very least, stop trying to slash the meager amount of funding that they do provide, instead of sending the money to public schools via this long, twisty path. Honestly, this whole “federal vouchers will benefit public schools” argument is the kind of convoluted baloney that only a thinky tank wizard or a government bureaucrat could love. Which, unfortunately, doesn’t mean it won’t work.