The American Association of School Administrators commissioned a report about the pending legislation in Congress that would diminish funding for public schools and create generous profits for donors to voucher plans. This is a raid on public schools’ funding to benefit private and religious schools.
This is the press release from AASA.
Report: Private School Voucher Proposal Creates Tax Shelter for Wealthy; Would ‘Starve’ Public Schools of Critical Funds
Alexandria, Va. – May 17, 2017 – Legislation pending in Congress would create new opportunities for corporations and successful investors to earn huge profits by transferring public funding to private schools, according to a report released today by AASA, The School Superintendents Association, and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
The legislation—the Educational Opportunities Act—would put two new federal voucher tax shelters within reach for many more Americans and lead to an explosion in funding for private schools. It would also keep in place an existing federal loophole that permits savvy taxpayers to benefit from ‘double dipping’ practices, where they receive a federal deduction and state tax credit on the same donation to a private school entity. At present, high-income taxpayers in nine of the 17 states offering voucher tax credits can turn a profit using this technique.
The report, Public Loss, Private Gain: How School Voucher Tax Shelters Undermine Public Education, describes how boosting resources for private schools while simultaneously providing tax breaks for wealthy taxpayers and corporations will greatly undermine public education.
The expanded voucher tax shelter proposal under consideration would allow the federal government to reimburse wealthy taxpayers (with tax credits) in return for providing funding to private schools on the government’s behalf. Further, the report says the legislation would “starve” public education of critical funding at a time when available federal resources are already limited.
“We are hopeful that our policymakers considering this legislation will continue to recognize the critical role that public education plays in keeping our nation moving forward,” said Daniel A. Domenech, executive director, AASA. “Rather than push education privatization schemes forward during tax reform, Congress must take action to address current loopholes that enable wealthy individuals and private schools to profit on the backs of America’s neediest public school students.”
“Supercharging the tax subsidies offered to people who donate to private school voucher organizations has created a host of problems,” said Carl Davis, research director, ITEP. “Even taxpayers who may have little or no interest in private schools are able to profit, at the public’s expense, by making heavily tax advantaged ‘donations.’ The Educational Opportunities Act would expand the potential for that type of profiteering.”
The report affirms:
The Educational Opportunities Act would create a risk-free profit of up to 100 percent (up to $4,500 per year for individuals or $100,000 for corporations) in states with voucher tax credits.
Seventeen states divert more than $1 billion per year toward private schools via school voucher credits. When combined with a federal tax loophole, nine of these states’ credits are so lucrative that they allow some upper-income taxpayers to turn a profit on contributions they make to fund private school vouchers.
Details of this voucher tax shelter are unknown to most of the public, though private schools and savvy tax accountants have been advising wealthy taxpayers of its existence for years.
To download the report: http://www.aasa.org/vouchertaxshelter/
Click here to access a copy of: Public Loss, Private Gain: How School Voucher Tax Shelters Undermine Public Education.
For specific questions about the report, contact Sasha Pudelski, AASA assistant director, policy and advocacy, at spudelski@aasa.org.
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About AASA
AASA, The School Superintendents Association, founded in 1865, is the professional organization for more than 13,000 educational leaders in the United States and throughout the world. AASA’s mission is to support and develop effective school system leaders who are dedicated to the highest quality public education for all children. For more information, visit http://www.aasa.org.
About ITEP
ITEP, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, is a non-profit, non-partisan research organization that works on federal, state, and local tax policy issues. ITEP’s mission is to ensure that elected officials, the media, and the general public have access to accurate, timely, and straightforward information that allows them to understand the effects of current and proposed tax policies. For more information, visit http://www.itep.org.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is our government working for the public good? This is our government, which also pushes schemes to charter organizers to open up, buy buildings, rent them back, etc. “Our” government seems to be working for “them.”
Thank you and thanks to The School Superintendents Association and Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy for eye-opening and infuriating information abut the tax haven for profit-seekers from funds that should go to our public schools. It is clear, not too technical, and graced with graphics that shows how money is made and within IRS rules—rules that the IRS is not inclined to question.
I would not be surprised if charter operators participate in this opportunity in addition to claiming that they are privately operated and not really public when their policies and perks are questioned. I suspect there are even more benefits for savvy users of the pay-to-play visas available to foreign investors.
Shocking.
Who could have ever predicted?…..
Well hiddy ho!!….it’s finally sinking in for administrators and Superintendents. Now that their job’s are on the line, they are ready and willing to start speaking up/out. Maybe we can have some teachers (and it’s Union) start having an impact. The closer it gets to the kids, the more we can see that this whole market based reform movement (charters, vouchers, PL/ CBE etc etc) is not really about the kids at all. It’s about stealing from kids in the name of GREED.
Would you have expected any of this bullshit, yes that’s what it is, to sink in before those super adminimals were affected??
I said about NCLB when it was first foisted on the nation, that as soon as the effects started hitting the well-to-do districts then things might change. Well the powers that be made sure those “reforms” didn’t have a negative effect on those districts for more than a decade. Once it started to hit those districts, well those “righteous” super adminimals had to speak up because now it was their job and ass on the line. They spouted all kinds of platitudes about “being for the children” and “protecting the children” but the only things they were for and protected were themselves and their far higher than teachers salaries.
I’ll leave the commentary on this personal expediency as demonstrated by the super adminimals and their lesser adminimals versus justice for the students to someone far more astute than any of those adminimals:
“Should we therefore forgo our self-interest? Of course not. But it [self-interest] must be subordinate to justice, not the other way around. . . . To take advantage of a child’s naivete. . . in order to extract from them something [test scores, personal information] that is contrary to their interests, or intentions, without their knowledge [or consent of parents] or through coercion [state mandated testing], is always and everywhere unjust even if in some places and under certain circumstances it is not illegal. . . . Justice is superior to and more valuable than well-being or efficiency; it cannot be sacrificed to them, not even for the happiness of the greatest number [quoting Rawls]. To what could justice legitimately be sacrificed, since without justice there would be no legitimacy or illegitimacy? And in the name of what, since without justice even humanity, happiness and love could have no absolute value?. . . Without justice, values would be nothing more than (self) interests or motives; they would cease to be values or would become values without worth.”—Comte-Sponville [my additions]
You are absolutely correct Duane. And by the time they are ready to pounce on the affluent, the years of beating up and taking over the minority areas of this country will make them an even larger force to reckon with. The fact that some charters have operated (in wealthier areas) successfully “on paper” will not help at all either. The only thing that is going to be the proof in the pudding will be TOTAL disclosure of enrollment and transparency of how $$ is used. I am not counting on either. After all, The Donald promised he would disclose HIS tax return. ..Donald? Insert sound of crickets.
Perhaps the one worthwhile thing about all of this super-predictable and expected stuff is that it gives us a moment to remember and understand one essential truth that can get lost in all the gabbing: school administrators, by and large, have been and remain not only where the proverbial rubber meets the road with implementing and force-feeding whole heaps of teacher-unfriendly nonsense on districts and schools, but also super-friendly to so much anything, reform-y or not, that make teachers work more for less money. In short, school administrators, like bosses everywhere (just much more insecure and less bright), are bosses. Bosses suck. Like philosophically, they suck. In schools they suck more because they tend to be wildly insecure individuals who clearly have anxiety about not having chosen a corporate path, etc. (all working teachers, for example, know the moment when a colleague begins working towards being admin…..they start dressing in cheap power suits, use awful edu-corporate lingo earnestly, loudly, and in faculty meetings, and stop laughing at off color humor and jokes)
In sum, no matter how aggressively school administrators elbow up to our side in the anti-reform/privatizing “fight” (being kind, the other side is slaughtering us), we must ALWAYS know that given half a second they would sell working teachers out in a heartbeat, and would immidiately return to their work of demoralizing and abusing working teachers if, somehow, we returned to a “status quo ante-reformus.”
Now yes, I know there are some “good admin” folk out there…..and to you and you, yes you know I’m talking about you two, I don’t mean you. Well maybe I mean it kind of for one of you but definitely not the other.
i did a lot of work for my district writing several successful grants and serving on several leadership committees. Many encouraged me to go into administration. I never did it because I am not wired to glad hand and manipulate behind the scenes. Most of all, I could not consider leaving the classroom, which is where I wanted to be in the first place, not playing politics. The connection with students is what made the job worthwhile.
Yes, I have known some good administrators as well as a couple of stinkers. I never regretted my decision. I have far better memories from my career as a teacher, and I can look at myself and know I made a difference.
I met with my congressman, Don Beyer (D-VA) on Tuesday night. I asked about his position on HB610, the school choice bill, and he said he never heard of it. I believe him. I think that school choice/voucher opponents, need to get cracking, and inform their congresspersons, how they feel.
I live in Alexandria VA. I would like to check out this organization.