Steve Hinnefeld reports that the cost of vouchers soared in Indiana to $497 million. Most of the students using vouchers never attended public schools. Most of the voucher money subsidizes affluent students at private schools that choose their students.

That’s the verbal sleight-of-hand behind the phrase “school choice.” schools choose, not parents or students.

In Indiana, as in Ohio, the state constitution calls for a uniform system of public schools:

“Article 8, Section 1. Knowledge and learning, generally diffused throughout a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government; it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intellectual, scientific, and agricultural improvement; and to provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.”

But the Republican governor and legislature have authorized charter schools and vouchers for private and religious schools.

The voucher program started in 2011 with only 4,000. Recently the legislature removed income limits. The state now subsidizes 76,000 students. That number is expected to grow now that the program is universal.

In 2024-25, students could receive vouchers if their family income was no more than 400% of the limit to qualify for reduced-price school meals. That’s about $230,000 for a family of four, more than three times the Indiana median family income, so most families qualified. The 2025 expansion will help the state’s wealthiest families pay private school tuition.

Nearly one million students are enrolled in Indiana public schools.