The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette demonstrated what an absurdity the Indiana voucher program is and why it should not be expanded. Research increasingly shows the negative effects of vouchers on students (see here and here).
Its editorial explained:
Fort Wayne has a parks system, supported primarily by property taxes. Most residents appreciate the parks, whether they use them or not, recognizing the benefits they afford the entire community. There are property owners, however, who don’t use the parks and spend their own money to pay for health club memberships or country club dues.
Now, imagine some of those property owners decide the share of tax dollars they spend for city parks should instead be returned to them as a “park voucher,” available for the members-only clubs they prefer. Without an increase in the tax rate, the amount of money available for city parks would shrink.
That’s the essence of Indiana’s school voucher program, which shifts tax dollars from a public good to a private commodity under the clever name of “Choice Scholarships.” With a voucher framework firmly in place and many Indiana voters convinced “school choice” is a sacred right, the General Assembly’s Republican supermajority is prepared to make its most audacious push yet to expand the program to wealthy Hoosiers.
House Bill 1005, with an estimated cost of $202 million over the next two years alone, will be heard in the House Education Committee at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The proposed bill expands the $172 million a year voucher program to allow a family of four earning as much as $145,000 a year to qualify for vouchers. Median household income in Indiana is about $60,000 a year.
Open the link and read the rest of the editorial.
Multiple studies show that students who leave public schools to enroll in voucher schools fall behind academically. Why do Indiana Republicans want to defund their public schools?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you for sharing this. The park metaphor is excellent! Diane, on the subject of vouchers, I just published an article on Betsy DeVos’s education policy discourse that may be of interest to you and others. The article, “Education populism? A corpus-driven analysis of Betsy DeVos’s education policy discourse,” looks specifically at DeVos’s use of the words “freedom” (as in “Education Freedom Scholarships”) and “choice.”
https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/5868/2580
Yes! The parks metaphor is perfect.
“freedom”
IMO, the unwillingness to recognize the origin of the attack against public schools (the training manual of Koch-funded Paul Weyrich posted at Theocracy Watch) sets back the campaign to save public schools.
Two articles to add to reading lists (1) an op ed by Charlie Kirk in Newsweek, 5- 2020, “I’m an evangelical fighting for the Catholic school system”. Kirk makes the case for “freedom, lower taxes” and, rejection of collectivism as the foundation for Christian values (2) the article posted at the Napa Institute by Tim Busch in which he draws similarities between Christian religion (Catholicism) to Charles Koch’s new book.
In almost every state there is a state Catholic Conference acting as a political policy arm. Some have co-hosted with the Koch’s AFP, school choice rallies in state capitols.
The conservative religious majority on SCOTUS decided in favor of religion in both the Espinosa and Biel v. St James Catholic school cases.
Why do . . . Republicans want to defund their public schools?
That question is perfectly put.
Hoosier-itis strikes again.
This is pandemic privatization. While everyone is preoccupied with Covid, Republicans dream up schemes like vouchers to undermine public schools and move public money into private pockets.
The raid on public schools and funding works best in the dark or in the middle of a pandemic.