Phyllis Bush is a retired educator and a member of the board of the Network for Public Education who lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
She writes here about the hidden cost of vouchers, which are a gift of public dollars to private schools with no accountability.
Here is an excerpt:
Vouchers drain state tax dollars from the entire education funding pot. This often causes district budgeting deficits and/or the need for tax increases, referendums and the like. That loss of revenue to public schools increases class sizes and diminishes student resources such as counselors, support personnel, supplemental materials and buses.
From the vantage point of a traditional public school supporter, vouchers are a gift of taxpayer funds given to private schools without any accountability. Additionally, the expansion of choice is creating two separate school systems. In this parallel system, one pathway will be for those who can afford quality choices. The other pathway will be to an underfunded, separate-but-unequal road, marked by poverty and by zip codes. As most people know, public schools are required to accept all students while “choice schools” have the option of choosing the students who fit their agenda. Choice schools are allowed to reject students with behavior issues, students with low scores, students with disabilities, and students who don’t speak English.
The probable result of this further expansion of choice schools will be that the children with the most difficulties will be housed in the least well-financed schools. Sadly, many legislators have chosen to be willfully unaware of the consequences of “school choice.”
While the reformers and the takeover artists and the hedge fund managers talk and talk and talk about the miraculous results of school choice, research shows that these results are uneven at best. As thoughtful citizens and taxpayers, wouldn’t it be prudent if we asked ourselves what is best for our traditional public schools, our communities and our kids?
Perhaps the fundamental question is what does society stand to lose in the name of “school choice?” Whose choice is it, anyway?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Some courts have defended the rights of employers refuse to pay for birth control or other types of birth control because such practice is against their religion. Why shouldn’t an atheist or agnostic have the right to sue for using public dollars on religious schools as in the case of most vouchers? Public dollars, especially when research shown that the quality of instruction is inferior, should not be spent to proselytize young people in anyone’s religion. Our founding fathers are turning in their graves. Time to call the ACLU.
Many of our founding fathers received education from religiously-affiliated schools. Thomas Jefferson (deist) attended the college of William and Mary.
The Supreme Court has already ruled in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), that a religiously-affiliated school, can redeem vouchers from parents, as part of an overall school choice plan.
For many years, veterans have redeemed the GI Bill school payments are religiously-affiliated schools, for university level educations. There have been no constitutional questions raised at the university level, and there are none at the K-12 level, either.
Vouchers and Educational Savings accounts, send payments to parents, who are then empowered to choose the educational setting for their children: Public, private, parochial, or home-school.
If the educational establishment truly wishes to stop school choice/privatization/vouchers, the best way would be to make school choice unnecessary. If public schools could deliver a quality education to children, and achieve excellence, then there would be no desire to abandon them!
Charles,
NEWS FLASH!
None of the Founding Fathers went to public schools because there were no public schools in the 18th century!
The development of public schools, underwritten by the public, open to boys and girls, not controlled by any religious group, was a great step forward for democracy in the 19th century. The elimination of racial segregation by law and the inclusion of children with disabilities were great democratic advances in the 20th century.
We are now poised to hurtle back to the early 19th century by underfunding our public schools
At least we agree, that Democracy (our constitution) pre-dated the establishment of public schools. This being the case, we can assume that Democracy can continue to exist without government-controlled public schools!
No, Charles, before there were public schools, there was slavery and women were not allowed to vote. Democracy?
Are you suggesting that public schools are responsible for the emancipation of the slaves, and granting the franchise to women? Last I heard it was the 13th and 19th amendments, respectively.
No, Charles, I was not suggesting that public schools emancipated the slaves and gave women the vote.
Your previous comment was that the Founding Fathers didn’t go to public schools(which did not exist in the 18th century) so this was proof that we had a democracy before public schools, ergo, public schools are not necessary to have a democracy. My response was that a nation with slavery and no votes for women was not a democracy. You contort that into my claiming that public schools caused abolition and women’s enfranchisement. No, Charles. Democracy evolved. Part of that evolution was the abolition of slavery, the extension of universal suffrage, and the expansion of universal public education.
We now see a movement to suppress the black and Hispanic vote, and a movement to privatize public education. They are related.
You said Q- We now see a movement to suppress the black and Hispanic vote, and a movement to privatize public education. They are related.END Q.
Where do you see this? I do not see a movement to suppress any votes. Quite the opposite, nearly half of all eligible voters just sat at home during the last election, of their own free will.
And what is the relationship between this alleged movement to suppress voting, and the school choice/privatization movement?
Charles,
Google voter suppression.
Same rightwingers want Trumpian ideas.
I believe this is a simple case of pursuing a political ideology without regard, or even familiarity, of the outcome. http://educatelouisiana.org/2017/01/24/making-a-case-for-choice-vouchers/
…and if you consider what “Choice” really is…http://educatelouisiana.org/2016/12/06/choice-vs-choose-vs-chosen/
…you realize the ridiculousness of the premise. http://educatelouisiana.org/2016/11/21/choice-the-charter-pool-movement/
Well, We know that the schools or “educational service providers” that accept vouchers or “scholarships” will get to choose the students they want.
This is already a common practice with charter schools.
The virtues of competition and choice are overstated and misleading. Both are economic concepts pertaining to “markets” and not to the common good of public education.
Public schools have been dumped on by politicians who do not want to address their own roles in creating unparalleled inequities and poverty in the larger society. The many conditions that produce poverty are deliberately ignored in favor of scapegoating teachers and schools. Add several decades federal and state policies that aggrandize rating schemes under the banner of accountability. By design these stack rating/league table schemes portray most schools as failing or as mediocre in “outcomes,” meaning scores of standardized tests are the easiest measures and also misleading. Teachers and schools are easy scapegoats.
Well stated. Every scheme is a way to weaken public education and drain the coffers. Every scheme creates an avenue that leaves public education holding the bag. If we keep going on this crazy road, American students will be more like the ELLs I taught from developing nations. Our schools are a victim greed and misguided zealots.
I think there’s a disconnect between ed reform’s assumption that private schools are better than public schools and reality.
Here’s an example:
“On February 2 at 4 pm, Fordham hosts a discussion with school choice researchers on the findings of recent studies of the impact of using vouchers to attend private school.
As the event page notes, the newest research on voucher programs has found surprisingly negative results. What is the right takeaway from these studies for Congress and the Trump Administration as they contemplate a new federal school choice program?”
Why would they be “surprised” that voucher students in Ohio are behind public school students? Why did they start with the assumption that private schools (which really means Catholic schools if you’re in Ohio) were better?
This comes from ideology, not reality. There’s anti-public school bias in ed reform, and it’s baked in. They should address it, because it’s probably driving research.
We had a parochial school in my district that closed. My district absorbed most of the students. We found the majority of students were about a year behind our public students. Parents were baffled because their children had received “good grades” in the other school. There is no guarantee that a private school will have the same expectations as the public school.
The most succinct answer to why pushing for school ‘choice’ is a very dangerous path: “…the expansion of choice is creating two separate school systems.”
I don’t want to pick nits or get bogged down in semantics, but money re-directed from public schools to private/religious schools via vouchers is hardly a “gift;” that term makes them sound like passive recipients of taxpayer generosity, rather than active lobbyists successfully pursuing a political and economic agenda.
Those tax dollars are not gifts, they are extractions, nay, lootings from the public realm, directed toward private interests.
The current system is no different in regards to the 2 separate systems argument…
On one hand you have children receiving FAPE and on the other there are significant numbers of children remaining illiterate and without numeracy skills equivalent to their age and grade level and more importantly, in comparison to the amount of time they’ve spent attending public schools for on average 1+ school years (or more) on average.
The first outcry for vouchers arose immediately after the 1954 Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education in which the Court declared that separate but equal was inherently unequal and ordered racial integration of the public schools. That ruling triggered “white flight” from public schools to private schools — but parents quickly realized that the tuition cost of private schools was more than they wanted to pay out-of-pocket. That realization led political and private resegregationists to the concoct the “reform” of vouchers, and to sell it to eager parents by deceptively marketing it then —and still today — as merely giving parents free “choice.”
The entire “education reform/choice/voucher/charter school” movement has from its very beginnings been rooted in racism. The movement, of which charter schools are the profit-making part, has always had resegregation of America’s schools as its core agenda. Reports from the NAACP and ACLU have revealed the facts about just how charter schools are resegregating our nation’s schools, as well as discriminating racially and socioeconomically against American children, and last year the NAACP Board of Directors passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on charter school expansion and for the strengthening of oversight in governance and practice. Moreover, a very detailed nationwide research by The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA shows in clear terms that private charter schools suspend extraordinary numbers of black students.
The 1950’s voucher crusade faded away when it soon became clear that because of school attendance boundaries based on segregated neighborhoods no more than a few token blacks would be attending formerly all-white public schools. In 1972 when the Supreme Court finally ordered busing to end this ongoing de facto segregation, the voucher movement rose from its grave and in various forms has been alive ever since then trying new tactics to restore racial segregation because it’s unlikely that the Court’s racial integration order can ever be reversed. When it became clear in the 1980’s that vouchers would never become widespread, the segregationists tried many other routes to restore racial segregation, and the most successful has been charter schools because charter schools can be sold to blithely unaware do-gooder billionaires as well as to unscrupulous profiteers who recognized charter schools as a way to divert vast amounts of tax money into their own pockets and into the pockets of supportive politicians at every level of government.
An essential part of the strategy to mask their underlying motives has been for segregationists to sell the public on the necessity for charter schools because public schools are allegedly “failing.” With all manner of “research” that essentially compares apples to oranges against foreign nations’ students, and with the self-fulfilling prophecy of dismal public school performance generated by drastic underfunding of public schools, and with condemnation of public school teachers based on statistically invalid student test scores, the segregationists are succeeding in resegregating education in America via what are basically private charter schools that are funded with public money.
The Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a warning that charter schools posed a risk to the Department of Education’s own goals. The report says: “Charter schools and their management organizations pose a potential risk to federal funds even as they threaten to fall short of meeting the goals” because of the financial fraud, the skimming of tax money into private pockets that is the reason why hedge funds are the main backers of charter schools.
The Washington State Supreme Court, the New York State Supreme Courts, and the National Labor Relations Board have ruled that charter schools are not public schools because they aren’t accountable to the public since they aren’t governed by publicly-elected boards and aren’t subdivisions of public government entities, in spite of the fact that some state laws enabling charter schools say they are government subdivisions. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A “PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL” because no charter school fulfills the basic public accountability requirement of being responsible to and directed by a school board that is elected by We the People. Charter schools are clearly private schools, owned and operated by private entities. Nevertheless, they get public tax money.
Even the staunchly pro-charter school Los Angeles Times (which acknowledges that its “reporting” on charter schools is paid for by a billionaire charter school advocate) complained in an editorial that “the only serious scrutiny that charter operators typically get is when they are issued their right to operate, and then five years later when they apply for renewal.” Without needed oversight of what charter schools are actually doing with the public’s tax dollars, hundreds of millions of tax money that is supposed to be spent on educating the public’s children is being siphoned away into private pockets.
Charter schools should (1) be required by law to be governed by school boards elected by the voters so that they are accountable to the public; (2) a charter school entity must legally be a subdivision of a publicly-elected governmental body; (3) charter schools should be required to file the same detailed public-domain audited annual financial reports under penalty of perjury that genuine public schools file; and, (4) anything a charter school buys with the public’s money should be the public’s property.
NO PUBLIC TAX MONEY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO GO TO CHARTER SCHOOLS THAT FAIL TO MEET THESE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS OF ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE PUBLIC.
I find myself in total agreement with the final capitalized statement. (and many of the points you raise). Vouchers should only be redeemable at fully-accredited charter/private/parochial schools. The government can regulate virtually every aspect of our economy and institutions. It is perfectly reasonable to assume, that the Department of Education can develop a “certification” for non-public institutions of learning, and ensure that voucher students redeem their vouchers at institutions that can pass muster.
Charles, when government gives money to religious schools, government will eventually impose mandates, regulations and accountability.
We know that “one size fits all” standardized education fails many of our children. What no one seems to realize is that you don’t have to give away taxpayers money to for-profit charters and/or as vouchers to have school choice. One possibility: Divide large school buildings/districts into a number of smaller schools (max 150 students). Each smaller school would offer a different PROVEN approach to learning, such as Montessori, International Baccalaureate, etc. (learner-centered approaches). AKA the approaches of schools to which the wealthy (including Arne Duncan) send their children while doubling down on one-size-fits-all for “other people’s children.”
For those who believe that standards and standardized testing are right for their children, that would also be available. Explain each of the approaches to parents and students and give them a choice! No need to send either taxpayer money or children out of district to “charter” schools or private schools. Yes, I know…there would be a lot of details to work out. It isn’t the schools that are failing–it’s the mandated federal policies that are the antithesis of research on authentic learning. Choice WITHIN public education? Wow! What a concept!
Vouchers seem to be a gift for both the school and the giver seemingly the money is washed i am a republican and whatever they decide is what i would go along with if the gop says we dont want them then hey i wont