Blogger Steve Hinnefeld posts about the new state budget proposals in Indiana, which increases spending on education. Unfortunately, a disproportionate share of the increase is allocated to expanding vouchers. A family with two children and an income of $222,000 will qualify for vouchers to a private or religious school. This does not “save poor kids trapped in failing schools.” It is a subsidy for the affluent.
He writes:
Indiana House Republicans are bragging that their proposed state budget will make record investments in education, including an 8.5% increase in K-12 funding next year. That’s not false, but it’s misleading.
A huge chunk of that increase would go to private schools under a vastly expanded voucher program, not to the public schools that most Hoosier students attend.
The budget would boost state funding for K-12 schools by $697 million next year, an 8.5% increase from what the state is spending this year. But it’s estimated that about $260 million of next year’s increase would go to growing the voucher program, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
In other words, 37% of the new money for education would go to vouchers that pay tuition for private schools, which enroll just over 7% of Indiana K-12 students. That’s hardly equitable.
The budget appropriation for base school funding, which accounts for 80% of state funding for public schools, would increase by only 4% next year and 0.7% the following year, House Republicans admit. That’s nowhere close to the current or expected rate of inflation….
The budget legislation would expand the voucher program to include families that make up to 7.4 times the federal poverty level: $222,000 next year for a family of four. Overall, the state would spend $1.1 billion on vouchers over two years, double the current spending rate.
It would also eliminate the “pathways” that students must follow to qualify for vouchers, such as having attended a public school, being eligible for special education or being the sibling of a voucher student. In practice, any student can qualify for vouchers by receiving tuition funding from a “scholarship granting organization.” But eliminating the pathways will make it simpler to get a voucher.
I’ve written about the many reasons vouchers are a bad idea: for example, voucher schools aren’t accountable or subject to public oversight; they discriminate against students, families and employees; they cause students to fall behind academically; and more. But what’s truly confounding about this voucher expansion is that it would benefit only people who don’t need it.
Rep. Jeff Thompson, R-Lizton, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, said the objective is to increase “options.” “We want those parents to have the best choice they can have with regard to where their children should go, and all parents should have that,” he told reporters.
But a couple with two kids and an income of $222,0000 already has “options.” They can pay private school tuition without state assistance. In fact, it’s likely that most students who join the voucher program are already attending private schools. This is a handout for affluent families.
Please open the link and read the post in full.
Vouchers are a slippery slope leading to the destruction of the common good. If a state wants universal vouchers, the money should come from a separate fund, not public school budgets, particularly if students eligible for vouchers are not former public school students. Vouchers force communities to disinvest in their own public asset while they benefit affluent families. It is a massive loss for working people and a massive bonus for affluent families. Vouchers make the schools that serve all take a backseat to the wishes of a few. Universal vouchers are an elitist power grab at the expense of the children of working families.
You hit the nail on the head.
If the original premise for vouchers was to save “poor kids from failing schools,” universal vouchers simply allow the affluent to use public school budgets like ATMs for the affluent. These vouchers are designed to transfer tax dollars into unaccountable private pockets. They are not ‘conservative’ in any way. They are reckless and damaging to public schools due to the parasitic nature of funding scheme. These vouchers are the antithesis of what the founders of public education intended, and they are wholly undemocratic.
I suspect that the biggest political push for vouchers—aside from the many millions of dollars spent by DeVos, Koch and friends to buy politicians—comes from families who have kids in private school now and want the public to pay their tuition. The public doesn’t at attention and doesn’t realize that the schools their children attend will be shortchanged.
The push comes from those who want taxpayers to fund Catholic schools.
Welfare for the wealthy has always been bigger than the working-class funded social safety net. The average Social Security recipient paid into SS for 45 years while working full time before old age and retirement.
Some of the taxes the working class pays also is used to fund that welfare for the wealthy.
Traitor Trump was the recipient of some of that welfare for the wealthy when he was handed $800 million in subsidies to help build his Atlantic City casino hotel/s that never made a profit and went bankrupt more than once, costing US banks more than a billion dollars in losses from the loans that Traitor Trump’s crime family business was forgiven.
Every year the Traitor was the CEO of those hotel-casinos, that was part of his crime family empire, he gave himself six figure raise each year while the casino hotel wasn’t taking in enough to pay the bills.
Somehow, I got on the Indiana State Teachers Association email.[I’m a retired teacher from Illinois.] It is totally disgusting that teachers have to put up with stuff like this from ignorant politicians.
I signed two petitions, and added my own comment:
1.]TAKE ACTION: Tell legislators to prioritize public schools and reject private school voucher expansion in radical state budget
All kids, no matter where they live, should be able to pursue their dreams in a great public school. However, the currently proposed radical budget increases spending on private school vouchers by 70%, while increasing traditional public school funding, where 90% of Hoosier students attend, by only 5%.
The current budget would provide more than $1 billion for wealthy families making up to $220,000 to attend private school for free, while neighborhood public schools continue to struggle to provide enough resources for students and pay hard-working educators a competitive salary.
Urge lawmakers to prioritize public education and oppose this huge expansion of unaccountable private school vouchers in the budget. Ask them to increase their commitment to public schools.
2.]TAKE ACTION: TELL LEGISLATORS TO OPPOSE A BILL THAT WOULD REMOVE LEGAL PROTECTIONS FOR TEACHERS AND LIBRARIANS
02/17/2023
SB 12 is yet another culture war bill furthering a false narrative about our public schools. Rather than locally addressing issues over content, the bill would open teachers and librarians to criminal prosecution over educational materials. The bill would remove existing legal defenses schools and school libraries may use when locally determining educational materials. These matters will end up in litigation without administrative steps.
This bill has passed out of the Senate and is now under consideration by the House. Tell your representative to oppose SB 12.