Blogger Steve Hinnefeld reports that the latest expansion of vouchers is a boon for rich families. So much for “saving poor kids from failing schools.” As we have seen in other states, 75-80% of voucher recipients are already enrolled in private and religious schools. The voucher money subsidizes those who are already paying for nonpublic schools.
He writes:
The voucher expansion that Indiana legislators approved last week constitutes a massive handout to religious institutions and a transfer of wealth from everyday Hoosiers to benefit Indiana’s elite.
Lawmakers voted early Friday to raise the income limit for families receiving private-school tuition vouchers from 300% to 400% of the level for receiving reduced-price school meals. For a family of four, that’s $220,000.
The expansion raises the cost to the state of the voucher program to $1.1 billion over the next two years. That’s up from an estimated $300 million that Indiana is spending this year on vouchers.
In fiscal year 2024, state funding for vouchers will increase by 72.3%. That compares with a 5.4% increase in state spending for traditional public schools and a 16.2% increase for charter schools.
Increases in funding in fiscal year 2024 for traditional public schools, charter schools and private school vouchers. Source: HEA 1001 and SEA 391.
State analysts estimate the expansion will grow the voucher program from its current 53,000 students to about 85,000 students next year and 95,000 the following year. The additional 30,000 to 40,000 students will come mostly from families that don’t now qualify. That is, they make more than $165,000 but less than $220,000 for four people.
A voucher is worth what the state would pay for a student to attend a local public school, typically about $7,000. A family with three children in private schools would get about $20,000 a year in state benefits.
In fiscal year 2024, over one-third of the increase in state funding for K-12 schools will go to a voucher expansion that benefits about 3% of the state’s students. We can assume that, if these families want their kids in private schools, they’re already there. The difference is, now the public will pay for it.
Please open the link and read on.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Greed corrupts.
I am shocked, shocked I tell you! Imagine that the rich and their tame legislators are rigging the system even more in their favor!
When I first read of the political push for these vouchers many decades ago, at least they were honest. Their argument then was that they were already paying for their children’s education, so why should they have to pay twice through taxes. Not a surprising attitude for a group that puts no truck in the commons.
Steve,
After years of seeking vouchers for their own benefit without success, they changed the motive. Now vouchers are for “poor kids in failing schools who deserve the same choices as the rich.” But 75-80% of vouchers go to kids already in private schools as a subsidy, and are not enough for poor kids to go to foood schools, so they fall farther behind.
Yep, lying has never come hard for these folks . . . as long as there are dollars piled at the end of that path. Basically they discovered that telling the truth didn’t get them what they wanted, so they looked for alternatives.
Please keep up the fight Diane, I consider you to be a National Treasure.
Vouchers allow residents to use public school budgets like ATMs. The result will weaken the public schools’ ability to serve their students. It also makes it difficult for public schools to plan and project their fiscal needs. These bonuses to the wealthy also have the potential to make some public systems collapse from the economic loss from charter and voucher drain.
The wealthy in America love to project the rest of us as socialists, while they simply wallow in government hand outs.
Paul, so true.
The implication from this post is that the intent of vouchers is to benefit the rich. The rich are collateral, not the motivation. The primary objective in the central states is to gain enrollment at religious schools, mainly Catholic, with the plan that the existing Republican power structure stays in tact.
J. Peter Ricketts, Nebraska US Senator and former Governor is on the Board of the Lumen Christi Institute at the University of Chicago. Readers can find a statement of mission both there and at the Catholic Information Center’s site for the Leonine program. Leonard Leo was successful with the SCOTUS initiative. A few years ago, the Catholic Vote site (received money from one of Leo’s funds) quoted a political advocate for the right,
SCOTUS transitioned from a 5-4 Roberts court to a 5-4 Thomas court.
The Dems losing support in the Hispanic segment in states like Texas provides a good indicator of the nation’s direction. Constitutional law Professor, Adrian Vermuele, makes a clear point when he calls for immigration preference for Catholics.
Linda,
There can be more than one motivation for policy changes. You see vouchers as a boon for Catholic schools. I see non-Catholic governors like Gregg Abbott pushing vouchers. He doesn’t give a damn about enrollments at Catholic schools. Most beneficiaries in Texas are likely to be Christian evangelicals. He’s trolling for votes.
Agree, Abbott’s motivation is himself. The same is true for Manchin when he promoted vouchers in W.Va. Money from the school privatization promoters may have influenced Manchin and Sherrod Brown. Then, there’s J Peter Ricketts for whom advancing the agenda of the Catholic church is important.
The voucher campaign has an underlying root system and that is the Catholic Church. IMO, vouchers are in the package that solidified the axis with Koch. The crown jewel in the package for the Catholic Church, was Roe v Wade’s overturn by Trump appointed Republican judges.
We know that school choice rallies were co-hosted by the Koch’s AFP and state Catholic Conferences. We know that conservative Catholics have publicly taken credit for initiating and passing school choice legislation in states.
A car racing team is an analogy. The driver wants a ride. The car brand managers want publicity. The crew chief wants the biggest paycheck for services rendered. But, the owners initiate the enterprise and some are hands on. State Catholic Conferences claim to be the initiators and they are hands-on for voucher legislation.