Daniel Luzer, the news editor of Governing magazine, reviews Arizona’s voucher program, enacted almost 20 years ago.
Competition was supposed to be a game-changer. Advocates said it would cost the state only $4.5 million a year and would lift the performance of minority students.
None of that was true.
The program now costs $140 million a year, and there has been little change in test scores for minorities.
It was a giveaway to the wealthy, who managed to save money on their taxes.
Luzer writes in Washington Monthly:
Over the 20 years the state’s education performance has gotten a little better, but that’s also occurred in pretty much every state in the country. The state has seen no significant improvements, either for students in general or ethnic minorities, as a result of the private school fund.
Another problem is that this fund is a way to avoid taxes. People or businesses can take care of their tax budgets by just dropping some money in the education slush fund. And that deprives the state of money it needs to operate.
In fiscal 2014, the most recent year available, Arizonans claimed $84 million in individual tax credits. Corporations claimed another $39 million.
But that’s a whole lot of money that they’re not paying for other things, funds Arizona needs to operate other programs.
The other, perhaps more serious, result, according to the article, is the state now essentially runs a tax scheme under which people and companies can avoid paying taxes (which pay for public schools) by contributing money into a fund that pays for a few people to pay for private schools.
Only about 3 percent of the money is designated specifically for special-needs students. And 32 percent of the scholarship money given through the individual tax-credit programs goes to children of “low income” families, defined as those earning 185 percent of the federal poverty level, or $44,862 for a family of four…. The corporate tax credit for “low income” families has a more-generous definition — a family of four can earn as much as $82,996.
That’s because private school enrollment in the state is actually going down, and public school enrollment is increasing.
And meanwhile almost 70 percent of that fund is used to send the children of reasonably affluent people to “a school of their choice,” even though many of them could just afford the tuition on their own.
Not exactly a data-driven program.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
Diane, am I correct in that these vouchers do not fully pay for a child to attend school for an entire year? They are merely partial subsidies?
If so, that program is unfair. I’ll call them out on that one. While I believe in “free to choose”, the poor kids can’t take advantage of the subsidies if they have to foot the rest of the bill. I would not support that. It’s either a full voucher or nothing to be fair.
The vouchers cover tuition at religious schools, with are generally low. They do not meet the cost of tuition at most private schools.
Do the vouchers cover the per pupil cost that Arizona spends on public education? If so, it’s going to be legal.
But if the vouchers are less than per pupil spending and only cover what a parochial school charges, I doubt that law will stand up in court. I can’t imagine that basing a voucher on parochial school tuition will stand up.
I believe folks should be “free to choose”. However, funding vouchers at 70% (e.g.) of actual costs is really just a handout to the upper/middle classes. Those policies are selfish and give those of us who genuinely support reform a bad name. The vouchers should provide per pupil spending by AZ or be able to fully fund a wide variety of alternative school choices. Absent that, these policies are not in the interest of all kids.
Brien,
“. . . give those of us who genuinely support reform a bad name.”
What do you consider as “genuinely supporting reform” to mean? What exactly do you “genuinely support” versus what ‘reforms’ you don’t “genuinely support”?
Duane, I do not support:
1) Classifying teachers or schools by achievement scores alone. When someone says a school is failing because of average scores (not growth scores but achievement scores), that is a false picture. Growth is the key driver of effectiveness because it eliminates the SES of the kids.
2) Providing the per pupil funds when a charter (or other) school doesn’t enroll the more challenging kids. It appears PA has done a good job of allocating costs. Let’s say they spend $12K/kid on average. But gen ed kids cost $10K, ELL cost $15K and sped cost $40K. If you only give a charter $10K for each gen ed kid, that’s fine. If you give them $40K for the sped kid, that’s fine. If you give them $12K for a gen ed kid, that’s too much and is why so many on here complain of them pushing ELL/SPED out. If you give them what it costs and see how they perform, it’s fair.
3) I don’t support financial shenanigans to prevent transparency and rob taxpayers and students of funds. This debacle in Ohio by Imagine owner Dennis Bakke (the boss of my local SB chairman) is outrageous.
4) I don’t support “teaching to the test”. I support having curriculum that matches standards and the test so in that sense, you teach what’s on the test. But teachers shouldn’t have to (and need not) test prep since teaching concepts will result in good test scores.
5) Being dishonest in any way. It appears Ohio inflated grades of charters. That is unacceptable. It’s likely fraud and the people involved should go to jail. Note that Virginia did similar things with its ESEA waivers. They “assured” Arne certain things had been done when they knew they hadn’t (testified to that effect in court). In fact, VDOE told districts they needn’t comply with the ESEA requirements.
6) Lowering salaries for the sake of lowering salaries. Effective teachers should be paid well. They should be told what their total compensation is and allowed to receive promotions (to higher pay not admin positions). As inflation rises, so should teacher pay. Yet teachers should not get automatic raises just for having a birthday.
I’m sure I can think of more but that’s a start.
Virginia, I’m trying to be patient but you don’t listen. Charters get almost twice as much for special kids as public schools. By law, they do not have to spend that $40,000 for the kids who are special education. Do you knows how to spell SCAM?
Diane, I’ve got an idea. Here’s a proposed CC math question for your readers to test their math and finance skills.
Team A has two groups filling up their apple cart. One group puts 1 bushel in the cart every 24 minutes. The second group puts one bushel in that same cart every 8 minutes.
Team B fills up their apple cart at the rate of 1 bushel every 24 minutes.
Q1: What is their combined rate of Team A’s two teams (how many minutes does it take to fill up their cart)?
A. 1/16 (1 every 16 minutes)
B. 1/7
C. 1/6
D. 1/4
Q2: How much faster is Team A spending money, oops I mean filling the apple cart, than Team B?
A. 4x (4 times faster)
B. 1.5x
C. 2x
D. 10x
Bonus points if you can explain how this relates to my discussion of Virginia’s sped laws and why it is important for every “educated” citizen to understand basic 5th grade math concepts!.
“The other, perhaps more serious, result, according to the article, is the state now essentially runs a tax scheme under which people and companies can avoid paying taxes (which pay for public schools) by contributing money into a fund that pays for a few people to pay for private schools.”
It still amazes me that what happens to kids in public schools as a result of these schemes is never even considered. It’s as if they don’t exist.
I genuinely don’t understand how that happens. There is no one who says “wait a minute- this is a system and there will be system-wide effects”? It’s just 100% focused on the “choice” schools. How does the majority get excluded like that?
Chiara: an excellent way of pointing out that vouchers deny parents of public school students the choice of attending well-funded and well-supported public schools.
But then, that is the point of “choice but no voice”…
😎
Costly? The program is a mere 1.5% of the Arizona public school budget. I know, if you hate any benefit going to private schools (at least for K-12 schools, that is, not colleges and universities, which do receive public scholarships without any complain), then even one dollar is too much. But 1.5% of the budget isn’t “costly” by any definition of the term.
In addition, it seems disingenuous to say that families of 4 with under $83,000 in income are “reasonably affluent” and could afford tuition on their own. Really? Two private school tuitions could easily run $20,000 a year, nearly a quarter of the family’s income.
WT, when it is a waste of public funds, it is costly. Vouchers should be unconstitutional everywhere because they directly subsidize religious schools.
The Supreme Court has said otherwise, and their opinion matters more than yours or mine.
Maybe the fire department and police department should stop protecting religious schools and churches too, eh? Why should they get public benefits?
And certainly you’re against Pell grants, right?
Maybe police and fire protection should be provided by voucher. Then you could choose whichever police and fire agencies you want. Assuming you could afford them.
Quote me the case law, WT, where the Supreme Court has ruled for private school vouchers. I want the title of the case and the year it was decided. TIA.
Here’s a link: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=zelman+v.+harris
The vast majority of the private schools are religious, which is why the Center for Arizona Policy, one of the most powerful lobbying groups here in AZ, joins ALEC in pushing for vouchers. (see their policy page: http://azpolicypages.com/marriage-family/school-choice/)
Scary stuff –
“Parents must have actual access to the education choices. Education is expensive. Public and charter schools benefit from taxpayer funding while parents bear the cost of private and home education. For low- and middle-income parents, this funding disparity excludes them from access to all educational options. Programs to provide true parental choice must allow parents to direct the funding that is set aside for their child’s education. These programs can include vouchers, education savings accounts, personal-use tax credits, and scholarship tax credits. Vouchers and education savings accounts allow parents to direct government funds for their child’s education to the school of their choice.”
Yes, it’s expensive. That’s why we tax everyone to provide this needed service. Imagine the chaos that would ensue if each taxpayer could “direct government funds” only to programs they wish to support – lobbyists everywhere would be unemployed!. I would agree, though, that charters should not be getting any public money either.
In AZ families have the options of Charters and outside-of-district enrollment. This voucher program is just a way for middle class families to get subsidies and pay less in taxes. And, of course, they don’t have to take the high stakes tests. AZ has been starving Public School of funds while they pile on the requirements.
According to the Arizona State Constitution, any money going to private schools is illegal. However legality is something our elected officials seldom concern themselves with.