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Molly Ivins: Vouchers Are a Stupid Idea

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2025 //
2

Molly Ivins was a brilliant journalist in Texas, who died far too young (62). We could surely use her wit and insight right now. She wrote for many publications, including The Texas Observer, The New York Times, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. She also wrote a nationally syndicated column.

Ivins wrote an article about school vouchers in 1997 that was prescient. All her dire predictions about vouchers were right on target. The strangest part of the debate is that state legislatures now debating vouchers are totally indifferent to the problems they create.

Ivins saw it coming.

She wrote:

Editor’s Note: The Texas Observer published this column in its April 11, 1997, edition under the headline: “Texas: Laboratory for Lunacy.” That year’s private school voucher proposal narrowly died at the Lege.

Three strikes and you’re out? Watch Texas spend more on prisons than it does on schools. Thinking of making your tax structure more regressive? Come to the Lone Star State and see how it’s done. 

The latest brainstorm to afflict our friendly pols in Austin is school vouchers. Consider the beauty of this nifty scheme as it might eventually be worked out under the guidance of the Texas Lege. To improve the public schools (I swear, that’s how the advocates are advertising this lunacy): 

■We give vouchers to all the students who are already in private or religious schools around the state. Right there, before anybody else even gets a voucher, we will have taken, say, $1 billion out of the budget for our public schools. Shrewd move, eh? 

■We also give all the kids now in public school a voucher, thus theoretically enabling these children to attend the schools of their parents’ choice: Unfortunately, private schools might find themselves under no obligation to accept any of our kids; they could be rejected because of their religious affiliation, their disabilities, on the grounds that they’re not bright enough, because the school administrators don’t like their looks—any reason not specifically excluded by law.

The Texas Freedom Network, a normally sensible group of good guys, is running around like Paul Revere, trying to alert the citizenry to this dread downside of the school voucher idea. “Proposed voucher legislation would allow private schools to recruit the best athletes and students at taxpayer expense.” Folks, we’re talking football now! I knew you’d be concerned. Quel horrifying thought: The whole high school football tradition is in dire peril. Stop the madness now! 

On a more sober note, the good private schools we’d all like to send our kids to already have waiting lists a mile long. No public school kid is going to St. John’s in Houston or St. Mark’s in Dallas with a voucher clutched in his or her little hand; those schools cost $10,000 a year, and our little school voucher won’t cover half the cost. 

Now maybe, just maybe, some upper-middle-class folks might be able to afford a fancy private school with a voucher to help, but working-class and middle-class kids are going to be stuck just where they always were. Why should we spend public money to help just that one thin slice of the population when it won’t improve the public schools? 

The rural kids are really going to get burned by this idea. As you may have noticed, almost all private schools are in cities. Hundreds of rural school districts don’t have a single private school, but because of the way state education financing works, they’d still lose thousands of dollars from their budgets for the public schools without a single kid going to private school. 

I realize this means nothing to our Legislature, but it should be mentioned that the whole idea is rankly unconstitutional. 

All in all, this concept is so bad that it has an excellent chance of passing the Legislature. Much as we would like to help the rest of the nation by demonstrating once more just how stupid ideas work out in practice, couldn’t we give this one a miss? 

In case you’re wondering who is pushing this dingbat notion, it’s the religious right, the same charmers who helped elect the right-wingers who now grace the state Board of Education. If you haven’t checked in on the state board lately, you really should. It’s a lot of fun—fruitcakes unlimited, flat-Earthers, creationists, all manner of remarkable specimens. In fact, it’s gotten so bad that there’s even a bill in the Lege to replace it with an appointed board again. 

You may recall that we’ve had this fight before. In keeping with my Theory of Perpetual Reform, I now favor an appointed board. Last time, I favored an elected board. What I really favor is the idea that no matter what we try, in about ten years, it’s always a mess again and we need to try something else. 

Speaking of matters educational, let me take on a sacred cow that is long past its prime: local control. Have you noticed that the people who consider local control of the schools a sanctified arrangement are the same people who are always complaining about how terrible the schools are? If local control is such a great idea, then how come the schools are so bad? Have we considered the possibility that maybe local control is the problem? 

A truism of the everlasting education debates is that someone somewhere has already solved whatever the problem is. Someone somewhere is always doing a brilliant job of teaching physics to inner-city kids, or teaching music to a bunch of rural kids in the 4-H who have heretofore considered Loretta Lynn classical music, or getting bored suburban brats excited about Herman Melville. 

The problem is that we can’t seem to replicate the successes in the schools across the board because there is no across the board. Instead, there’s local control. Sometimes it’s superb, granted. But often, it’s hopelessly knot-headed. Ask the folks in Dallas—they’ve had some lulus lately. It seems to me just possible that maybe what we need to do is take education out of the hands of insurance salesmen, Minute Women and other odd ephemera of the electoral process and put it in the hands of… well, educators. 

Categories Education Reform, Separation of church and state, Stupid, Texas, Vouchers

Carol Burris: Update on the School Funds in Trump’s Big Ugly Budget Bill

By dianeravitch
July 1, 2025 //
0

Most attention has focused on the horrible cuts to Medicaid and food assistance (SNAP) in the bill just passed by the GOP majority in the Senate. It has some differences with the version passed by the GOP House, so there will be changes and compromises.

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Educaruon, wrote this update on the education portion of the Senate bill that passed, called the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA). She refers to the Big Ugly Budget Bill as BBB.

She writes:

Despite the efforts of Democratic senators to get the Parliamentarian to override ECCA entirely, ECCA was significantly weakened in the Senate BBB and is no longer a universal voucher program. 

  •  The $4 billion cap for total contributions was removed. It is now unlimited. However, it is no longer a tax shelter for stocks, making contributions far less attractive. The maximum credit has been reduced to $ 1,700. 
  • States, as well as the Treasury, can now regulate the program; therefore, states without a voucher program are not mandated to have one. Additionally, the credits are only available to individuals residing in a state with an approved Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO).
  • Because the bill allows public school students to access scholarships and the list of allowable activities includes tutoring, payment for courses, and payment for tests (for example, AP exams), I am trying to determine whether states without vouchers could create SGOs for public school students only.
  • BBB needs to go back to the House, so all of this will likely change again. 

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Cruelty, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Inequity, Republicans, School Choice, Trump, Vouchers

Senate Parliamentarian Removes Vouchers from GOP “One Big Ugly Bill”

By dianeravitch
June 27, 2025 //
2

Politico reports great news for America’s public schools. The Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, removed the private school voucher part of Trump’s “One Big Ugly Bill,” because it runs afoul of the Byrd Rule. The Byrd Rule prevents the inclusion of extraneous issues that are not directly related to fiscal issues. She also ruled that the Senate’s effort to protect religious colleges from an onerous tax on their endowment had to be removed from the bill. Here is the official history and definition of the Byrd Rule, which applies only in the Senate.

Juan Perez Jr. writes:

A Republican proposal to enact a multibillion-dollar private school tax credit program would be subject to a 60-vote threshold if it is included in conservatives’ domestic policy megabill, the Senate parliamentarian advised early Friday in a significant challenge to what would be a sweeping federal school choice program.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough also determined that an effort to carve religious schools — including Hillsdale College in Michigan — out of a planned expansion of the federal college endowment tax does not meet the Senate Byrd rule’s criteria for the filibuster-skirting reconciliation process, according to Senate Budget Democrats.

Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee had proposed a permanent, $4 billion annual tax credit for individuals who donate to organizations that support educational expenses including private-school tuition, which was projected to cost $26.046 billion between 2025 and 2034, according to estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation.

The tax credit scholarship plan, which is based on the Educational Choice for Children Act, would allow scholarships to students whose families make up to 300 percent of the area median gross income.

The committee also aimed to soften the blow of expanded taxes on private college and university endowments compared to a House-passed tax bill, though many qualifying private schools would still be in line to pay a tax rate of up to 8 percent of their net annual investment income.

It’s not yet clear if Republicans would try to rework some of the tax provisions that MacDonough found violated the Byrd rule, effectively blocking their inclusion in a GOP-only reconciliation measure. Republicans have successfully tweaked other proposals to the parliamentarian’s liking, but her rulings this week certainly helped upend GOP senators’ efforts to bring their fiscal package up for a vote.

Categories Education Industry, Vouchers

Stephen Dyer: Vouchers in Ohio Are a Disaster! I Told You So!

By dianeravitch
June 27, 2025 //
18

Stephen Dyer is a public policy expert, a specialist in school finance, and a former legislator in Ohio. He warned 11 years that vouchers would drive the state budget over a fiscal cliff. The court decision a few days ago proves that he was right on target.

Let this be a warning to all the other states that are adopting vouchers (without the consent of the governed, in every case).

He writes:

Proponents have claimed for years that Ohio and U.S. Supreme Court cases from the program’s infancy allows for explosive growth. Judge Jaiza Page warns, “Not so fast.” Just like I did 11 years ago.

Dyer wrote the following 11years ago:

“Overall, the state is sending nearly $144 million to private schools this year. In 2010-2011, that number was $78.85 million — nearly half the amount. Makes you wonder whether the case upholding Ohio’s Vouchers in 2002 would have the same outcome today. Also makes me want to kind of find out.” — Stephen Dyer on 10th Period blog, Jan. 25, 2014

Now he writes:

I guess we found out Tuesday, didn’t we?

To be clear, I had no idea that anyone would actually file a lawsuit against Ohio’s unconstitutional Voucher system when I wrote that on Blogspot 11 years ago (though I really did want someone to do that). But given the Ohio and U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings on vouchers at the turn of the century, I did question whether the state’s explosive funding of vouchers actually was justified under those rulings.

Guess who else agreed with me? Franklin County Judge Jaiza Page. While I focused in 2014 on the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court case Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, Judge Page focused on the 1999 Ohio Supreme Court case Simmons-Harris v. Goff. 

Goff reached a similar conclusion as Zelman — that given the program’s then-small educational footprint, both in terms of kids and money — it did not interfere with Ohio’s overall ability to educate its public school students, so the program (which at the time only included Cleveland) was ok.

However, when Goff was decided, the Cleveland Voucher Program cost $5.7 million. The just-passed state budget allocated $2.5 billion over the biennium to the current program.

And that’s where voucher proponents got waaaay out over their skis. I realized this 11 years ago. But now, it’s even more obvious. The programs examined by the U.S. and Ohio Supreme Courts at the turn of the century look very different from the current budget hog Judge Page examined.

And she made that factual difference really clear in her ruling:

“As to the thorough and efficient challenge, the court ultimately held, “[w]e fail to see how the School Voucher Program, at the current funding level, undermines the state’s obligation to public education.” (Emphasis added.) Id. From this language, the Court concludes that the Goff court foresaw a renewed challenge to a larger scholarship or voucher program like EdChoice as an unconstitutional state supported system of private schools. Goff warned that a system that does not create but supports nonpublic schools in a way that jeopardizes the thoroughness and efficiency of the State’s system of public schools violates Article VI Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution.”

Added to this is this incredible fact that was brought out in the court case: 

Not a single penny of voucher money goes to a single parent or student. It goes directly to private, mostly religious schools.

Let me repeat that for those of you in the back:

Not a single penny of voucher money goes to a single parent or student. It goes directly to private, mostly religious schools.

That’s right. This whole money-following-the-kid/parental-choice narrative that voucher proponents are still spilling out is complete, utter Grade A Bullshit.

In 1999, the money did go to parents and kids. Page was quite concerned about this payment change because the Ohio Constitution bans state establishment of religious schools. And if state money flows directly to religious schools that rely heavily on taxpayer subsidies (she mentioned that some private schools have 75% or more of their kids on vouchers), that is establishment and unconstitutional.

“By bestowing participating private religious schools with complete control over prospective students’ participation, the “school choice” here is made by the private school, not “as the result of independent decisions of parents and students.””

It’s as if the original creators of the Voucher program carefully crafted the legislation to pass judicial muster. Then when they got a favorable ruling, the gloves came off.

Oh yeah. One more thing: Not a single penny of the nearly $9 billion we will have spent on vouchers since 1997 has ever been audited. So we have no idea how the money on this unconstitutional program has actually been spent.

But I digress.

Luckily for Ohio’s 1.5 million public school kids, Judge Page recognized the program’s current reality rather than voucher proponents’ fictional account.

Just as your friendly neighborhood blogger did 11 years ago.

Not to brag. 

Well, maybe a little!

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Funding, Ohio, Privatization, Vouchers

Ohio: Judge Rules that EdChoice Vouchers Violate State Constitution

By dianeravitch
June 26, 2025 //
0

In 2022, school districts, parents, and public school advocates filed a lawsuit against the state’s EdChoice voucher program. Yesterday, Franklin County Court of Common Pleas Judge Jaiza Page ruled that vouchers for private schools violate the state constitution.

The Constitution of Ohio says that the General Assembly is responsible for funding a thorough and efficient system of common schools. Common schools are public schools. It explicitly prohibits the use of public funds for religious schools. 

Judge Page issued the first ruling on the lawsuit, known as the Vouchers Hurt Ohio lawsuit, which challenged the constitutionality of vouchers. The plaintiffs were a group of dozens of public schools and the Coalition for Adequacy and Equity of School Funding. The state will appeal this ruling. For now, those who led the lawsuit are thrilled.

“We are pleased that the court affirmed what we have been saying all along,” William Phillis, executive director for the Coalition for Adequacy and Equity of School Funding, said. “The EdChoice private school voucher program, which has been diverting hundreds of millions of much needed tax dollars from public schools to private schools, is unconstitutional.” 

Phillis was behind another lawsuit over Ohio’s schools in the 1990s, which ruled Ohio’s system of funding schools did not adequately live up to the Constitutional requirements. The case, DeRolph v. Ohio, ruled the state’s reliance on property taxes and its funding system did not fulfil the Ohio Constitution’s requirement to create a “thorough and efficient system” of public schools.

Page said the state’s voucher program also fails to create a thorough and efficient system. She ruled the EdChoice program directly contributed to less funding for public schools, increased segregation in public schools as more white students participated in EdChoice, and unconstitutionally provided funds to religious schools without oversight.

Read the decision here.

Stephen Dyer, public school advocate and former legislator, writes on his blog Tenth Period that the decision exposes the lies that the voucher lobby has peddled for years.

Dyer writes:

There have been lots of stories and posts about the historic voucher decision made yesterday by Franklin County Judge Jaiza Page. But I want to take a step back with you, Dear Reader, and explain just how expertly the Judge laid bare the thing I’ve been spitting into the wind over for the past 15 or so years: Ohio school voucher advocates have been lying to you, the public and journalists for a generation. 

Let me point out a few of the most common lies told by voucher advocates.

  1. Ohio vouchers are scholarships. Ohio school choice advocates sometimes are too clever for themselves. Calling vouchers “scholarships” in law doesn’t make them “scholarships”. Yet that’s what these politicians insist we call them. Judge Page went right after this argument in her decision: “The idea that EdChoice establishes scholarships, not a system of schools, and that it funds students, not private schools, is mere semantics … Where EdChoice participating private schools are inexplicably receiving double the per pupil state funding than public schools, it is difficult to say that EdChoice is simply a scholarship that follows and/or benefits the student as opposed to a system that benefits private schools.”
  2. Vouchers are simply a matter of money following the student. This is the kind of EduSpeak bullshit I’ve railed against for years. As I’ve said in this space many times, when 85% of the K-12 students in your state only get 77% of the money spent on K-12 education in your state, money ain’t following the kids. It’s going to private schools. As Judge Page put it: “Where EdChoice participating private schools are inexplicably receiving double the per pupil state funding than public schools, it is difficult to say that EdChoice is simply a scholarship that follows and/or benefits the student as opposed to a system that benefits private schools.”
  3. Vouchers have no impact on public school students. This is obvious bullshit, yet proponents make the claim all the time, even well-thought of ones like the Fordham Institute (who actually argue it helps public school kids!). See, the problem is that when David Brennan started the Ohio Voucher program nearly 30 years ago, he thought he’d be so clever. See, he would (yes, I know legislators did this, but make no mistake about it, Brennan was calling the shots) put the program’s money into the same line item as school district funding. That way, the program could never be line item vetoed, and no matter how much more money the program needed, it would always get the amount it needed because the money would just come out of the state funding for kids in local school districts, who would then have to go for more and bigger property tax levies. But in this case, that cleverness bit voucher advocates in the ass. Because Judge Page can read a spreadsheet. As she put it: “The General Assembly … passed the (Fair School Funding Plan) to fulfill its constitutional directive and address Derolph. Yet, it has shirked that responsibility, by: at best, (1) claiming that the FSFP, a plan of its own creation, is too expensive; or, at worst (2) simply refusing to fund it. Instead, the General Assembly chose to expand their system of private school funding by about the same amount as Ohio’s public schools lost through the General Assembly’s failure to fully fund the FSFP.
  4. Vouchers are a Parental Rights issue.This line of bullshit emanates from the program’s origins — claiming that it would provide poor kids the opportunity to attend the same private schools rich kids do. However, the evidence is clear that’s simply not happening. In fact, it’s the schools — not the parents — that this unconstitutional system empowers. As Judge Page revealed for everyone to see: “Parents only choose which school they apply to. The ultimate decision to accept prospective students, and by doing so receive EdChoice funds, lies with the private school. (So) a private religious school has the discretion and ability to apply for and receive subsidies directly from the government, while at the same time discriminating against applicants on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, or other criteria.”

There will be many more opportunities to go through this historic decision and pick out bits and pieces. But I thought it was important for everyone to recognize the major policy lies voucher advocates have pushed for 30 years were laid bare by this decision. 

Because at its core, Ohio’s unconstitutional voucher program benefits private, mostly religious schools at the expense of the 1.5 million Ohio kids who attend Ohio’s public schools. 

That’s the bottom line. 

And that’s been true since 1997.

Categories Education Reform, Extremism, Lies, Ohio, Vouchers

Trump Tax Bill Harms Public Schools by Funding Private Choices

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2025 //
9

Matt Barnum and Richard Rubin of The Wall Street Journal describe the harm that Trump’s One Big Ugly Budget Bill will do to public schools.

They wrote:

Republicans’ tax-and-spending megabill would give the school-choice movement a major, long-sought victory—and deliver an unusually generous tax break to wealthy taxpayers.

The bill includes a new way for taxpayers—whether they are parents or not—to direct tax dollars to private-school scholarships instead of the Treasury. There is an extra twist: It could deliver virtually risk-free profits to some savvy investors.

The proposal has excited school-choice advocates, infuriated public school leaders and stunned tax experts.

“Overnight, this would give millions of students access to the school of their choice,” said Tommy Schultz, CEO of the American Federation for Children, an advocacy group pushing the provision. “This is a revolution within the tax code.”

The American Federation for Children is the far-right wing group created by Betsy DeVos to promote charter schools and vouchers.

The incentive is structured as a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit. Give to a charity known as a scholarship-granting organization and you would get the same amount subtracted from your federal tax bill. 

It is equivalent to redirecting your taxes to a scholarship-granting organization (SGO), with the benefit capped at 10% of adjusted gross income or $5,000, whichever is greater. That is a far better deal than what is offered by normal charitable donations, which generally just reduce your taxable income and only if you itemize deductions….

For people with appreciated stock, the proposal could be even more attractive than a dollar-for-dollar credit, potentially creating net profits. 

Consider someone who bought a stock for $100 that is now worth $1,100. Selling that stock would trigger capital-gains taxes of up to $238. But under the bill, he could donate the $1,100 stock to an SGO. The government would give $1,100 back and he wouldn’t pay capital-gains taxes. 

He could then buy the same $1,100 stock on the open market. The result? He’s better off than when he started, spending nothing to erase a potential capital-gains tax liability. 

“In terms of something that is deeply offensive to basic tax logic, it’s hard to beat this,” said Lawrence Zelenak, a law professor at Duke University who expects donors to line up every Jan. 1 to take advantage. “Unless you actively hate the charity, you would want to do it…”

A federal program would expand private-school tuition subsidies into states such as New York and California that have resisted school choice programs….

The House bill caps credits at $5 billion annually, which would climb by 5% in subsequent years if the program is heavily used. That bill would run from 2026 through 2029. The Senate version released Monday includes $4 billion annually, starting in 2027 but without an expiration date. 

The credit would mark a significant injection of resources to private education as the Trump administration separately seeks to cut federal grants for public schools. Still, it would pale in comparison to funding for public schools, which receive several hundred billion dollars annually, mostly from state and local governments. 

Democrats hope the breadth of the policy changes will prompt the Senate parliamentarian to determine that it’s out of bounds for the budgetary fast-track process Republicans are using.

Public school advocates say the program would benefit better-off families at religious private schools. “The federal government needs to fund the neighborhood school that serves children from every walk of life,” said Sasha Pudelski, a lobbyist with the school superintendents’ association.

Opponents also say the idea has been rejected by voters. In November, three states voted down school-choice ballot measures.

Note: not only were vouchers defeated in three states last November, voters have rejected vouchers in every state referendum since 1967.

The new tax credit could become a model for Congress to direct money to other causes through the tax code, said Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a progressive group that criticizes the plan.

Civil rights laws prohibit certain forms of discrimination in schools that receive federal funding, but it isn’t likely this would apply to private schools that benefit from the proposed tax credit, said Kevin Welner, a research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. The House bill includes a provision barring discrimination against students with disabilities in school admissions; the Senate version doesn’t. 

State voucher plans do not bar discrimination in voucher-receiving schools. They can and do discriminate at will. Some require that families are members of their faith. Some bar LGBT students and families. Some bar students with disabilities. Some bar students with low test scores.

Trump’s funding of school choice is the fever dream of Christian nationalists. With one blow, they eliminate the separation of church and state, they get funding for religious schools, and they gut civil rights laws that barred discrimination.

It also permits the revival of school segregation, under the once-discredited banner of school choice. White Southerners who don’t like “race mixing” have dreamed of this day since May 17, 1954.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Privatization, Trump, US Education, Vouchers

Arizona: Cost of Universal Vouchers Reaches $872 Million per Year

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2025 //
0

The Grand Canyon Institute has been tracking the growth and cost of vouchers and charter schools in Arizona for several years. The vast majority of students who take vouchers (almost 3/4). But this year, a larger share were drawn from district schools and charter schools.

The report contains a number of excellent graphics. Open the lin to see them.

This is the Grand Canyon Institute release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Cost of Universal ESA Vouchers

Contact: Dave Wells, Research Director, dwells@azgci.org or 602.595.1025 ex. 2.

Summary of Findings

  • 73% of Universal ESA voucher enrollees have never attended district or charter schools (including adjustments for students entering Kindergarten).
  • In FY2025, however, net new Universal ESA voucher enrollees primarily came from charter and district schools.
  • While the total cost of the overall ESA program in FY2025 is expected to be $872 million, the net cost after adjusting for where students would have otherwise attended is $350 million for those in the universal ESA voucher program. This represents a slight increase from the $332 million estimated by the Grand Canyon Institute last year.

The Grand Canyon Institute (GCI) estimates a $350 million net cost to the state’s General Fund in FY2025 (July 2024-June 2025) for the universal component of Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) voucher program based on a student’s school of origin. This represents a slight increase over the estimated FY2024 cost of $332 million. The estimate assumes basic student funding weights. 

The Joint Legislative  Budget Committee currently estimates the total annual cost of the ESA program to be $872 million, which includes the original targeted program and the universal component. Because student-level data on the universal program is not separated out by the Arizona Dept. of Education, GCI must estimate the origin of universal program enrollees. GCI’s estimate reflects the net cost the state would have incurred if the universal ESA voucher program did not exist. Almost every single child in the original targeted program had to attend a district or charter school for at least 45 days before enrolling in the program. GCI uses historical data on where the targeted students had come from previously, dating back to FY2017, along with current data on where all ESA students have left district or charter schools to estimate the distribution of students across district and charter schools for the original targeted program and the remainder are allocated to the universal program. 


In FY2025, the net growth in the universal ESA vouchers was 7,660 of the total enrollment of 61,688. GCI estimates that 73% of ESA universal voucher recipients never attended a district or charter school, slightly lower than the rate of 80% in FY2025. This includes estimates for kindergarten students using ESA universal vouchers. 

The primary driver of the change in FY2025 was a significant increase in the portion of net new enrollees from district and charter schools. GCI examined the marginal changes since last year and estimates that nearly half the net gain in universal participants of 7,660 from FY2024Q2 to FY2025Q2 came via Kindergarten. Analyzing changes in the portion of students previously attending a district or charter school, GCI estimates that less than 10% never attended (or would have never attended for Kindergarten) while half came from charter schools and just over 40% came from districts.

This change helped lessen the growth of the net cost of the program. GCI presumes that Kindergarten students do not have a record of prior attendance but would mirror the same distribution.  Given that charter school enrollment is about one-fourth of district enrollment, charter schools have been significantly disproportionately impacted by the Universal ESA program.

Despite the change in FY2025, the majority of participants in the universal ESA program never attended a district or charter school should be self-evident. For FY2025, the Quarter 3 Executive and Legislative ESA report identifies that of the total 87,602 students enrolled in the ESA voucher program (targeted and universal), regardless of when they first enrolled, only 33,942 students  moved from charter or district schools to an ESA. Virtually all targeted participants must first enroll in a district or charter school first. The universal program does not require prior attendance. 

Access the full report here.

The Grand Canyon Institute, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization, is a centrist think tank led by a bipartisan group of former state lawmakers, economists, community leaders and academicians. The Grand Canyon Institute serves as an independent voice reflecting a pragmatic approach to addressing economic, fiscal, budgetary and taxation issues confronting Arizona.

Categories Accountability, Arizona, Charter Schools, Data, Education Industry, Funding, School Choice, Students, Vouchers

Jan Resseger: Trump’s Ugly Budget Bill Defunds Public Schools

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2025 //
1

Jan Resseger is a social justice warrior who fights for the underdog. She describes here how Trump’s budget enacts the fever dreams of evangelicals and billionaires. He would change federal aid from its historic purpose–equitable funding–and turn it into school choice, diverting funds from the poorest children to those with ample resources. Since 1965–for 70 years–federal education funding for public schools has enjoyed bipartisan support. Trump ends it.

She writes:

Earlier this week, Education Week‘s Mark Lieberman released a concise and readable analysis of the likely impact for public education of two pieces of federal funding legislation: the “Big, Beautiful” tax and reconciliation bill currently being debated in the U.S. Senate to shape public school funding beginning right now in FY 2025, and also President Trump’s proposed FY 2026 federal budget for public schooling in the fiscal year that begins October 1st.

Trump’s  FY 2026 budget proposal saves Head Start.

Lieberman shares one important piece of positive news about Trump’s treatment of Head Start in next year’s federal budget: “Some programs survived the cut—including Head Start.” In early May, the Associated Press‘s Moriah Balingit reported: “The Trump administration apparently has backed away from a proposal to eliminate funding for Head Start… Backers of the six-decade-old program, which educates more than half a million children from low-income and homeless families, had been fretting after a leaked Trump administration proposal suggested defunding it… But the budget summary… did not mention Head Start. On a call with reporters, an administration official said there would be ‘no changes’ to it.”

Federal funding for U.S. public schools looks bleak.

Lieberman’s assessment of federal public education funding is not so encouraging.  Overall, “The administration is aiming to eliminate roughly $7 billion in funding for K-12 schools in its budget for fiscal 2026, which starts Oct. 1. Several key programs will be maintained at today’s funding level, without an increase: “Flat funding amounts to a de-facto cut given inflation. The administration is proposing to maintain current funding levels for key programs like Title I-A for low-income students ($18.4 billion), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part B for special education ($14.2 billion) and Perkins grants for K-12 and postsecondary career and technical education ($1.4 billion).”

What has been historically a key purpose of federal public education funding—to compensate for vast inequity in the states’ capacity and the states’ willingness to fund public education—is being compromised.  Lieberman explains that much of federal funding, “is currently geared toward supporting special student populations including English learners, migrants, students experiencing homelessness, Native students, and students in rural schools. Longstanding federal programs that support training for the educator workforce; preparing students for postsecondary education; reinforcing key instructional areas like literacy, civics, and the arts… would disappear. A new K-12 grant program would offer a smaller pool of funds to states and let them decide whether and how to invest in those areas. And for the first time, all federal funding for special education would flow to states through a single funding stream…. Experts view Trump’s budget as part of an effort to roll back a half-century of effort by the federal government to help make educational opportunities more consistent and equitable from state to state and district to district.”

The “Educational Choice for Children Act,” an alarming federal school voucher bill, is hidden inside the “Big Beautiful” bill.

Lieberman worries about the enormous tuition tax credit voucher plan embedded deep in the weeds of the “Big, Beautiful” tax and reconciliation bill now being considered in the U. S. Senate: “Separate from the federal budget process, Congress is currently advancing a massive package of tax changes, including a proposal for a new tax-credit scholarship program that fuels up to $10 billion a year in federal subsidies for private K-12 education. Annual spending on that program could approach the amount the Trump administration is proposing to cut from elsewhere in the education budget.”  The voucher proposal is called the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA).

In a separate analysis of the “Big, Beautiful” bill as the House passed it in late May, Lieberman describes this proposed ECCA tuition-tax-credit voucher program: “House lawmakers narrowly approved a sweeping legislative package with $5 billion in annual tax credits that fuel scholarships and related expenses at K-12 private schools. The federal subsidies would come in the form of dollar-for-dollar tax credits for individuals and corporations that donate to largely unregulated state-level organizations that give out scholarship funds for parents to spend on private educational options of their choosing. Any student—even in states that have resisted expanding private school choice—from a family earning less than 300 percent of the area median gross income would be eligible to benefit from a scholarship paid for with a federally refunded donation.”

Lieberman adds: “No other federal tax credit is as generous. The Internal Revenue Service doesn’t currently supply tax credits worth the full donation amount for any cause, as the private school choice scholarship credit would do. The federal government currently offers tax credits on donations for disaster relief, houses of worship, veterans’ assistance groups, and children’s hospitals at roughly 37 percent of the donated amount.  A $10,000 donation to those causes would yield a tax credit of $3,700.  By contrast, under the proposed legislation, if a taxpayer donates $10,000 to a scholarship (voucher)-granting organization, the IRS would give them a tax credit of $10,000.”

The Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy’s Carl Davis explains that because these federal school vouchers are primarily a tax shelter, they might appeal to wealthy people who are not even supporters of school privatization: “The tax plan…  includes a provision granting extraordinarily generous treatment to nonprofits that give out vouchers for free or reduced tuition at private K-12 schools. While the bill significantly cuts charitable giving incentives overall, nonprofits that commit to focusing solely on supporting private K-12 schools would be spared from those cuts and see their donors’ tax incentive almost triple relative to what they receive today. On top of that, the bill goes out of its way to provide school voucher donors who contribute corporate stock with an extra layer of tax subsidy that works as a lucrative tax shelter. Essentially, the bill allows wealthy individuals to avoid paying capital gains tax as a reward for funneling public funds to private schools.” “We estimate the bill would reduce federal tax revenue by $23.2 billion over the next 10 years as currently drafted, or by $67 billion over the next ten years if it is extended beyond its four-year expiration date… As currently drafted, the bill would facilitate $2.2 billion in federal and state capital gains tax avoidance over the next 10 years.”

The Brookings Brown Center on Education Policy’s Jon Valant warns that the vouchers are so deeply buried in the “Big, Beautiful” bill that lots of people would not be aware of the plan’s existence until after it is passed: “The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) continues to move, quietly, towards becoming one of America’s costliest, most significant federal education programs. Now part of the One Big Beautiful Bill, ECCA would create a federal tax-credit scholarship program that’s unprecedented in scope and scale.  It has flown under the radar, though, and remains confusing to many observers…  ECCA’s stealthiness is partly due to the confusing nature of tax-credit scholarship programs. These programs move money in circuitous ways to avoid the legal and political hurdles that confront vouchers.”

Valant explains how tax-credit vouchers work: “Tax-credit scholarship programs like ECCA aren’t quite private school voucher programs, but they’re first cousins. In a voucher program, a government gives money (a voucher) to a family, which the family can use to pay for private school tuition or other approved expenses. With a tax-credit scholarship, it’s not that simple. Governments offer tax credits to individual scholarship granting organizations (SGOs). These SGOs then distribute funds… to families.”

Valant creates a scenario that shows how this tax credit program could help the wealthy and leave out poorer families. A rich donor, Billy, donates $2 million in stock to an SGO: “Billy’s acquaintance, Fred, lives in the same town as Billy, which is one of the wealthiest areas in the United States. In fact, Fred set up the SGO, looking to capture ECCA funds within their shared community… Like Billy, Fred doesn’t particularly care about K-12 public education… It might seem that Fred’s SGO couldn’t distribute funds to families in their ultra-wealthy area, since ECCA has income restrictions for scholarship recipients. That’s not the case. ECCA restricts eligibility to households with an income not greater than 300% their area’s median income. In Fred and Billy’s town, with its soaring household incomes, even multimillionaire families with $500,000 in annual income are eligible… So, Fred is looking to give scholarship money to some wealthy families in his hometown.”

Valant summarizes the result if the “Big, Beautiful” bill is enacted: “This bill would introduce the most significant and costliest new federal education program in decades. It has virtually no quality-control measures, transparency provisions, protections against discrimination, or evidence to suggest that it is likely to improve educational outcomes. It’s very likely to redirect funds from poor (and rural) areas to wealthy areas.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Funding, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

Brookings Analysis: Trump’s “School Choice” Plan Enables Waste, Fraud, and Abuse

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2025 //
3

Jon Valant is doing a great job as Director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D. C. He keeps close tabs on federal legislation. What follows is an excellent analysis of Trump’s legislation to use federal funds to underwrite the privatization of federal education funding. The potential for fraud, waste, and abuse is huge, he writes.

He writes:

  • The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) would create a $5 billion federal tax-credit scholarship program through a tax shelter for wealthy individuals.
  • The bill would provide minimally regulated scholarship-granting organizations with a great deal of discretion over how federal education funds are spent.
  • A hypothetical scenario illustrates the possibility of waste, fraud, and discriminatory behaviors.

The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) continues to move, quietly, towards becoming one of America’s costliest, most significant federal education programs. Now part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, ECCA would create a federal tax-credit scholarship program that’s unprecedented in scope and scale. It has flown under the radar, though, and remains confusing to many observers.

Recently, a colleague and I showed how ECCA is poised to redistribute funds from poor and rural communities to wealthy and non-rural communities. A study from the Urban Institute drew similar conclusions. Since those pieces were published, ECCA—then a standalone bill—has passed through the House of Representatives and now moves to the Senate. ECCA’s fate remains uncertain, which makes this as good a time as any to examine its potential implications.

How would ECCA work?

ECCA’s stealthiness is partly due to the confusing nature of tax-credit scholarship programs. These programs move money in circuitous ways to avoid the legal and political hurdles that confront vouchers. Tax-credit scholarship programs like ECCA aren’t quite private school voucher programs, but they’re first cousins.  

In a voucher program, a government gives money (a voucher) to a family, which the family can use to pay for private school tuition or other approved expenses. With a tax-credit scholarship, it’s not that simple. Governments offer tax credits to individuals and/or corporations that donate to scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs). These SGOs then distribute funds (“scholarships”) to families.

The U.S. already has 22 tax-credit scholarship programs, but they’re relatively modest, state-level programs. ECCA is different. ECCA would create a massive, federal tax-credit scholarship program, operating across all 50 states, with a current price tag of about $5 billion in the first year (down from $10 billion in the bill’s earlier draft). It offers an extremely generous tax credit. Individuals get a full, 1:1 tax credit (not just a deduction) for their contributions, which fully offsets their contributions. In other words, these “donors” don’t actually give up any money—hence the quotation marks. On top of that, ECCA allows individuals to donate marketable securities (e.g., stocks) rather than cash. This provides an avenue to treat ECCA as a tax shelter and avoid paying capital gains taxes. More on that in a moment.

Most students would be eligible for a scholarship, with the exception of those from households that earn more than three times their area’s median gross income. (More on that in a moment, too.) The list of qualified expenses covers everything from private school tuition to online educational materials.

Rather than go through all of the bill’s details, let’s take a look at a scenario that illuminates what this program could do. Remarkably, this scenario appears—to my eye, at least—fully compliant with the House bill (even if the characters are a bit overstated).

A hypothetical scenario to illustrate some of ECCA’s risks

A ‘donor’ who benefits from ECCA’s tax shelter

Let’s imagine a billionaire, Billy, who couldn’t care less about K-12 education but cares a whole lot about his own wealth. Billy hears about ECCA from an acquaintance who tells him about how much money Billy could save by “donating” to an SGO. Billy’s adjusted gross income (AGI) was $20 million last year. That means, according to ECCA, that he’s eligible to donate $2 million to an SGO this year (10% of his AGI).

Let’s walk through the math for Billy’s donation. Billy is looking to give $2 million in stock shares to an SGO. He bought these shares a few years ago for $1 million and then they doubled in value. That means that Billy’s earnings are subject to long-term capital gains tax if he sells the stock. With his AGI, that would be 23.8% in federal taxes plus another 4.7% or so in state taxes (depending on where he lives). In other words, if Billy sold the stocks today and kept the funds for himself, he’d owe about $285,000 in combined federal and state taxes on his $1 million in earnings (28.5% of $1 million).

By donating the $2 million in stock to an SGO, not only does Billy get his entire $2 million back as a tax credit; he also dodges those capital gains taxes. He’s a billionaire who is $285,000 wealthier for having made this supposed donation. (For a detailed illustration of how this works—and some nice figures—I’d recommend this piece from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.)

A scholarship-granting organization with extraordinary leeway in how to direct ECCA funds

Now, let’s get back to that SGO. Billy’s acquaintance, Fred, lives in the same town as Billy, which is one of the wealthiest areas in the United States. In fact, Fred set up the SGO, looking to capture ECCA funds within their shared community—and, just maybe, for himself. Like Billy, Fred doesn’t particularly care about K-12 education. He does have a penchant for fraud, though, along with a strong distaste for Republicans.

It might seem that Fred’s SGO couldn’t distribute funds to families in their ultra-wealthy area, since ECCA has income restrictions for scholarship recipients. That’s not the case. ECCA restricts eligibility to households with an income not greater than 300% of their area’s median income. In Fred and Billy’s town, with its soaring household incomes, even multimillionaire families with $500,000 in annual income are eligible. In more modest (and rural) areas, the cutoffs aren’t nearlyso high.

So, Fred is looking to give scholarship money to some wealthy families in his hometown. Notably, ECCA doesn’t limit the amount of money that he can give to any one recipient. ECCA just requires that he provide scholarships to at least two students—who, between them, attend at least two different schools—and that he not earmark the funds for any particular student. Fred offers students $100,000 apiece for supplemental tutoring. That might seem like a lot, but, hey, this is high-end tutoring.

A vendor with little oversight or accountability

In fact, Fred stipulates that the funds must be spent at a new tutoring shop, High-End Tutoring, just created by his buddy, a former teacher. ECCA seems to allow that. ECCA also allows Fred to take a nice cut for himself for running the SGO: 10% of the SGO’s total receipts.

No one really knows the arrangement that Fred and his tutoring friend have, if they have one, because there are hardly any transparency or accountability provisions in ECCA (aside from a requirement to obtain annual financial and compliance audits). We also won’t know if High-End Tutoring provides any educational value, because that’s not part of ECCA either. ECCA’s proponents have claimed there’s accountability to the SGO donors, who want to see their generous donations being put to good use. Billy, though, is enjoying his $285,000 money grab and content to leave Fred alone until it’s time for next year’s donation.

An invitation to discriminate—and an attempt to keep local and state governments from intervening

Fred does have one requirement of his own for High-End Tutoring that he doesn’t need to hide. High-End Tutoring isn’t going to serve any children of Republican parents. All students must complete an attestation form—stating that they and their parents are progressive—before receiving any tutoring services from this publicly funded vendor. Across town, another SGO leader is formally excluding LGBTQ+ children and children of LGBTQ+ parents from their pool of scholarship recipients.

ECCA, in its current form, seems to allow all of this, as objectionable as it may seem. And it’s not just an issue with SGOs funding tutoring companies or other supplemental services. Similar issues could arise with private schools, especially in states without strong anti-discrimination protections.

From hypotheticals to reality

The scenario above might seem ridiculous or caricatured, and to some extent it probably is. But the point is, it’s allowable under the proposed legislation, and we should be realistic about how much fraud, waste, and bad behavior a program like ECCA would invite.

Should we not expect wealthy stockowners to jump at the opportunity to exploit ECCA’s tax shelter? Is it unreasonable to think that many of these wealthy donors will look to benefit their own communities through their donations? Have we not seen bad actors creep in when governments offer large checks with hardly any accountability or strings attached?

This isn’t some tiny, insignificant program either. This is a $5 billion federal program that, because of a “high-use calendar year” provision in ECCA, is almost certain to grow 5% annually. In fact, the cost is likely to be considerably higher than thatdue to the foregone capital gains tax revenue. That’s not quite the size of the behemoth federal K-12 programs—Title I ($18.4 billion in FY 2024) and IDEA ($15.5 billion)—but it’s not all that far off.

And let’s be clear about cost, because ECCA certainly isn’t paid for by the contributions of generous donors. Tax credits are would-be revenue that the IRS is no longer collecting. That money is coming from somewhere else in the budget, whether it’s cuts in education spending, cuts to Medicaid or other social services, tax hikes, or increased debt.

This bill would introduce the most significant and costliest new federal education program in decades. It has virtually no quality-control measures, transparency provisions, protections against discrimination, or evidence to suggest that it’s likely to improve educational outcomes. It’s very likely to redirect funds from poor (and rural) areas to wealthy areas.

And, in its current form, ECCA leaves a whole lot of room for waste, fraud, and abuse.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corruption, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Fraud, Funding, Privatization, Propaganda, U.S. Department of Education, Vouchers

New Hampshire: GOP is “Willfully and Knowingly” Sabotaging Public Education

By dianeravitch
June 9, 2025 //
2

Gary Rayno is a veteran journalist who writes about politics and government in New Hampshire. He knows more about school finance than most members of the State Legislature.

He wrote recently about the nefarious plan to privatize public funding and undermine public education in the Granite State, even though 90% of the students in the state attend public schools. New Hampshire has an unusual problem with a libertarian party called “Free Staters,” who don’t want government to pay for anything. They are well represented in the legislature.

He wrote:

If you watched the House session Thursday, you had to realize the message the Republican majority is sending on public education.

Republicans quickly passed expanding Education Freedom Accounts, or vouchers, that will cost the state’s taxpayers well over $110 million for the next biennium with most of the money going to higher-income parents who currently send their children to religious and private schools or homeschools.

The expansion to vouchers-for-all has been a goal of the Free State/Libertarian controlled GOP for some time and they are likely to reach this year by daring Gov. Kelly Ayotte to veto the budget package, something she is not likely to do although she wanted the students to actually attend public schools before they join the EFA program with few guardrails and little academic accountability.

Instead much of the debate was over two bills that would significantly change the educational environment in public schools.

Senate Bill 72, would establish a parental bill of rights in education, and Senate Bill 96 would require mandatory disclosure to parents. And for good measure they added Senate Bill 100 which could cost a teacher his or her teaching credentials if they violate the divisive concepts law and school districts could be fined $2,500 plus attorneys’ fees and court costs. 

The second offense is a permanent ban from teaching and school districts would have to pay a $5,000 fine and the penalties for third-party education contractors are even more onerous.

The state is prohibited from enforcing the law because a US District Court judge found the law unconstitutionally vague and the changes in Senate Bill 100 do nothing to change that except encourage more litigation.

These are just the latest attempt to convince the state’s residents that public schools are filled with far left teachers who want to indoctrinate students, to shield LGBTQ+ students from their parents and to encourage deviant behavior.

Nine-nine percent of parents with children in the public schools would tell you that is not true and the other 1 percent are in the New Hampshire legislature or related to someone who is.

Public schools are not perfect but the Free State/Libertarian talking points about public education are not being created in New Hampshire. They are the work of far-right think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and American Legislative Exchange Council, the same groups that generate the wording for these bills.

The legislature has not addressed the real problems facing public schools, but have instead been exacerbated by the GOP controlled legislature. The bills passed this session have created more work for educators and school boards and they divert time and money away from educators’ first responsibility: to educate students and prepare them to survive and compete in today’s world.

The elephant in the room is the lack of state funding for public education at the elementary, secondary and postsecondary levels where the state of New Hampshire, one of the wealthiest per capita in the country, is dead last behind such educational meccas as Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri and West Virginia.

Public schools do not need to spend more money for their educational system that continually ranks near the top nationally, but the state needs to pay its share of the cost which nationally averages a little less than 50 percent.

In New Hampshire local property taxpayers pay 63 percent of the cost of public education, while the state contributes 28.8 percent, leaving a little over 8 percent for the federal government to contribute, the 45th lowest for states.

Property taxes pay about 70 percent of the cost of education when you add in the Statewide Education Property Tax which is included in the state’s share although it all comes out of property owners’ pockets.

This legislature did two things to address the funding issue this session, one would be to bring the Statewide Education Property Tax collection methods in line with a superior court judge’s ruling that requires the property wealthier communities to turn their excess revenue not needed to cover the cost of an adequate education for their students over to the state and to stop the Department of Revenue Administration from approving negative local education property tax rates allowing unincorporated places to avoid paying the statewide property tax.

That action does not require any more state money and in fact increases state revenue by about $30 million.

The Legislature increased spending on special education in the second year of the biennium, but the Senate budget reduced that figure by $27 million.

Just a few years ago, the Education Trust Fund, which pays for state adequacy grants to public and charter schools, special education, building aid and several other educational needs, had a surplus approaching $250 million, but since that time the EFA program has also drawn its money from the same source of funds totally $76 million through this school year.

The additional draw from the EFA program and declining state revenues have combined to substantially change the financial picture. At the end of this fiscal year at the end of the month, the surplus will be around $100 million. 

At the end of the upcoming biennium the surplus in the Senate’s budget will be less than $20 million, with the fund in deficit under the House’s budget, and $14 million in the governor’s plan.

All three plans reduce the percentage of state revenues that go into the Education Trust Fund and increase the amount going to the state’s general fund.

Drying up the Education Trust Fund was a plan hatched long ago to have vouchers competing with public schools for state education money. When that happens, if you think your property taxes are too high now, just wait until the money goes to the voucher program first before adequacy grants to school districts.

The Free State/Libertarians have long sought to have public schools house only special education students and kids with disciplinary programs. The rest of the students and their parents will be on their own to find and pay for their education, meaning the rich will do just fine and everyone else will scramble to find an inferior education they can afford.

That is a pathway to retaining the oligarchy.

Another significant issue facing public education is the dearth of teachers as many school districts cannot find certified teachers to hire and instead have to rely on non-credentialed personnel or para educators to fill the gap.

See above and and you could reasonably ask, with these kinds of bills that put teachers between their students and their parents and make schools less than safe spaces for many kids, who in their right mind would want to be an educator.

At last week’s session, Rep. Stephen Woodcock, D-Center Conway, a retired teacher and school principal, said “Parental rights go hand in hand with parental responsibilities. It is not a teacher’s responsibility to do the parents’ job, which is talking with their children.”

And you could argue that public education ought to be more rigorous than it is now, but society has pressured schools to “make every child succeed,” and that translates into lower academic standards.

And that describes the new state education standards recently approved by the State Board of Education in the name of competency-based education.

If this group of legislators continue to control the agenda, it will not be long before public education will be in tatters, which will suit them fine.

But with about 90 percent of the state’s children in the public school system, it is hard to believe that is their parents’ or their desire.

Categories Budget Cuts, Cruelty, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, New Hampshire, Vouchers
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