“You get a private school voucher! You get a private school voucher! You get a private school voucher!” (h/t Oprah). That’s what the bill passed by the Arizona Senate sounds like to most people’s ears. If the bill becomes law, in a few years every child in the state will be eligible to receive an Empowerment Scholarship Account voucher. But it’s more complicated than that. Let’s look at the bill and its ramifications in a bit of detail.
First, the ESAs aren’t simply vouchers for private schools, where the state picks up the cost of private school tuition, or a portion of the cost. They’re vouchers for every child who isn’t enrolled in a publicly funded school, district or charter. As well as children attending private schools, it includes a wide variety of home schoolers. So long as the children aren’t enrolled in publicly funded schools, parents can get accounts containing taxpayer money they can draw on for any approved educational cost. That includes private school tuition, of course, but it can also include textbooks, educational therapies or services, tutoring, tuition for a learning program, the cost of tests such as the SAT and so on. If parents want to be entirely responsible for their children’s educations or if they want to create a cafeteria-style, pick-from-the-menu education strategy which includes tutoring, individual classes and so on, the ESA lets them do that, all on the taxpayer dime. If any money is left over at the end of the year—and many home schoolers would have lots of money left over—it can be rolled over year after year. Anything left at the end of K-12 can be used for college. The idea of subsidizing home schooling, and even encouraging home schooling by dangling the prospect of having money left over to pay for college, creates all kinds of frightening scenarios in which parents who aren’t equipped educationally or emotionally to educate their kids will be lured into trying to provide education on the cheap by the prospect of subsidized college education.
Next, to qualify for an ESA, a child must spend at least 100 days at a publicly funded school. That’s a little more than half of a 180 day school year. So, put your five year old in a public kindergarten, leave the child there for the whole year or just the first hundred days, and you get the next twelve years of non-public education paid for by the taxpayer.
But how much will the state pay for each child? That’s a phenomenally important question. The answer is somewhere between $3,500 and $5,000 per year for most children, based on estimates I’ve read. Children who need educational assistance beyond the normal classroom—they have physical or mental handicaps, they qualify for ELL, etc.—get more money allotted to them, just as they do in all publicly funded schools. It can be upwards to $20,000 a year, and maybe more in some cases.
For now, let’s just look at the majority of children who don’t need any special assistance. Let’s estimate their ESAs are $4,000 a year and see what that will buy on the private school market. It won’t pay most private elementary school tuitions, and it won’t come close to paying most private high school tuitions. You can find schools whose tuition is in that ballpark, but the institutions have to scrimp on staff and services unless they’re heavily subsidized. Really, the only reason to send a child to one of those low tuition schools is to get a religious education. Over 70 percent of Arizona’s private schools are religiously affiliated—the percentage is similar around the country—and the schools with rock bottom prices aren’t known for providing a quality education in non-religious subjects.
If parents want to send their children to what most people would consider a quality private school, one they might expect to provide a better education than a district school or charter, they’re probably going to have to kick in a substantial amount of tuition money on their own, then they’ll have to pay for textbooks, general supplies and other “extras.” That means the people who will benefit most from the ESA money are upper middle class or upper class parents who can already afford the schools or come close. And benefit they would! They’d get a $4,000 scholarship to the expensive private school of their choice, courtesy of the taxpayer. As a bonus, they wouldn’t have to worry about their children rubbing elbows with the riff raff, even those with ESAs. Lower income kids couldn’t afford the school even with a $4,000 ESA boost, and if they could figure out a way to scrape the money together, well, remember, private schools can pick and choose which students they enroll, so it wouldn’t be hard to figure out ways to exclude members of the great unwashed even if they somehow had the money.
The people who will benefit most from ESAs are people who can already afford private school or are only a few thousand dollars short of affording it, which should be a surprise to no one who has even a nodding acquaintance with Republican priorities. All those upper income folks have to do is put their children in public school for a hundred days, and they’re golden through high school graduation.
This article appears in Feb 18-24, 2016.
What a great plan. I can’t wait to see what happens once it gets established. David, the thing you fail to recognize in public education is that, just like other fields, competition makes you better. Maybe the public’s will have a couple rough years, but once they get their priorities straightened out, there will be some people that will buy what they are selling.
You still have to find a way to accept the fact that most of the responsibility for this lies on their actions/inactions.
“Let’s estimate their ESAs are $4,000 a year and see what that will buy on the private school market. It won’t pay most private elementary school tuitions, and it won’t come close to paying most private high school tuitions. You can find schools whose tuition is in that ballpark, but the institutions have to scrimp on staff and services unless they’re heavily subsidized. Really, the only reason to send a child to one of those low tuition schools is to get a religious education. Over 70 percent of Arizona’s private schools are religiously affiliated—the percentage is similar around the country—and the schools with rock bottom prices aren’t known for providing a quality education in non-religious subjects.”
Why don’t you break down the “religiously affiliated” private schools in Tucson and admit that the majority of them are Catholic, David? That piece of information has come across elsewhere in your writing:
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2015/07/30/where-the-tuition-tax-credit-scholarship-money-goes
For someone who purports to be a culturally sensitive proponent of integration, you don’t show a lot of respect for the religious affiliation of a respectable percentage of the Hispanics living in this community, many of whom would prefer that their children attend a parochial school where they can get an education that is respectful of their values and traditions and where they can receive moral formation as well as academic formation.
Contrary to your snide insinuation that “Really, the only reason to send a child to one of those LOW TUITION schools is to get a religious education…and the schools with rock bottom prices aren’t known for providing a quality education in non-religious subjects,” Catholic schools in the greater Tucson metropolitan area have, in general, better test scores than the public schools which their students would have been attending if they had utilized their neighborhood schools. If you had done research to back up your assertions and insinuations in this piece, you might be aware of that FACT.
As for your “it would only benefit the wealthy” assertion — this has absolutely no basis in sound financial analysis. A $4,000 subsidy would go a long way towards enabling a broader range of choices — and, if you’re talking about Tucson’s Catholic schools, academically sound choices. These policies would not just benefit the upper classes.
The use of these credits for home schooling without any valid standards or supervision definitely needs push back from those with children’s best interests at heart. But this snide piece reveals an ugly side of your opinions and your agenda — your desire to prevent families from utilizing schools that are academically high functioning if these schools, while providing valid academic education, also support and reinforce the family’s religious values.
Set up valid academic standards and only grant credits to schools that pass them. That’s a sane agenda. Belittling “religious schools” without doing any research to back up your contemptuous assertions is neither sane, nor is it respectable, nor is it broad-minded or humane.
We have checked Desert Christian ES and it is about 4500. Have heard great things about them. This would make it possible for us.
AZ Republic researched some numbers.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizon…
Welfare for the wealthy
“most children using the program are leaving high-performing public schools in wealthy districts…”
Legislators love putting issues to a vote. Let’s have a vote on this.
Simple question: Do you want your tax dollars to pay for children to go to private and religious schools?
Methinks there would be a resounding no vote on this.
Seems like a great plan to make sure a child doesn’t get stuck in an underperforming public school which will negatively affect the rest of her/his life. When Milton Friedman came up with this idea 40 or so years ago ( in his book Free to Choose, I believe) he speculated that this would force improvements in public schools. Basic premise is that when monopolies have to compete, they get better or disappear. Let’s hope every student wins on this one.
Friedman fans need to read Hirschman’s “Exit Voice and Loyalty,” a classic written by an economist who had studied developing countries and recognized that market based mechanisms for reforming public institutions don’t always work the way Friedman hypothesized they would. (The effect is not always to stimulate improvement of performance in the public system. It is often to accelerate decline, by allowing an “exit” for just those quality-conscious consumers who could exert the most pressure for beneficial change if they remained within the public system.) Hirschman’s analysis predicted much of what we see these days with the results of introducing free market education programs into our public education system.
That said, we need to admit that there is no going back to the sort of “one option” system that we used to have, with everyone attending their neighborhood public district school. The reasons for this are complex, and they include that we are a pluralist, post-modernist society that does not subscribe to the same values and belief systems to the same degree that other societies that are more ethnically and culturally monolithic (Japan, Finland..) do. If secular or religiously affiliated private schools like the Montessori system, the Waldorf system, or the Catholic system can demonstrate that they are providing a high quality academic program that equips students to be constructive contributors to the community as adults, it fits our pluralistic value system to allow parents a choice of where to enroll their children without handicapping the alternative sector economically by ensuring, as we do now, that alternative schools cannot compete on level ground with public district and charter schools because they cannot offer free or (with subsidies) affordable services.
What needs to be combatted in the ESA programs is the absence of any kind of assurance of academic quality in the programs receiving subsidies. Would it be possible for those who believe students have a right to an academically sound, humane education to unite behind requiring our legislature to be more responsible in ensuring that all schools — including public district schools, which in this state are both insufficiently funded AND insufficiently overseen — deliver an academically sound, fully funded and humane education? Probably not, given what we’ve seen of the legislature’s performance — and the public’s apathy and / or inability to unite effectively behind a sane educational agenda — so far.
Pima Mujer wrote, “Let’s have a vote on this. Simple question: Do you want your tax dollars to pay for children to go to private and religious schools? Methinks there would be a resounding no vote on this.”
Methinks our elected legislators in this state have proved you wrong on that, Pima Mujer. The majority of the voters in this state have elected and re-elected legislators who support choice policies.
That being the case, do we want responsible choice policies that provide options while guaranteeing academic qualities, or do we want a free-for-all that doesn’t include any effective way of ensuring quality academic outcomes?
You’re not going to get absence of choice policies in this state. That is, at this point, politically unachievable. But if some of you secularists could overcome your anti-religious and anti-private sector biases, you might become effective advocates for the development of RESPONSIBLE choice policies rather than the irresponsible ones currently being legislated.
When are Americans going to realize that they are a cash cow for those who perceive themselves as better and more deserving of “the good life” and will do anything and everything to stack the deck in their favor. Just because you rob people with laws, practices, policies, rules, regulations, by laws, customs and other artificial contrivances does not make you better or smarter — you are still a thief — and now the Arizona legislators want to take one more step to ensure that only those who already possess the means will leap ahead of the rest. I was fortunate, or unfortunate depending on your point of view, to be a baby boomer. I grew up in an age when the future looked bright, although the struggle for civil rights still continues. I remember the War on Poverty that has been twisted by the haves against the have nots into the War against the Poor. I benefited from a good public education and graduated from high school able to read and write. Today, there is no guarantee that a high school graduate can read and write, but this legislation is not the answer. It is only one more subterfuge intended to widen the wealth gap using taxpayer money. As a side note, where to the governor’s children go to school and could he take advantage of this “windfall”?
The legislature is always hot on putting things on the ballot, like the screw the referendum proposal. Put Vouchers on the ballot. They are real good at requiring truth in every thing from local governments. Let’s try truth in this mess for the ballot. “Should Arizona taxpayers pay their taxes for children to learn Jesus rode dinosaurs, the earth was made 6000 years ago! And schools with no accountability and no certified teacher will get taxpayer money.” This is what you are going to get. This is whole mess is obscene. Nickel diming public schools to death on “accountability” while the “Holy Joe Christian Academy” will have none with this mess. And the Supreme Court accepted this crap, with, “if you just put enough straw parties (money launderers) in between, it makes it non government money.” How nice.
There is so much emotion without accurate information on this as with many other issues. Now it would appear that while charters are attacked for spending, costs to taxpayers have been reduced. And many many more parents are happy with the choice they have in their child’s education.
Bernie Sanders is parading around the country telling citizens that Republican governors are suppressing their votes by requiring ID at the polling places. Hillary has done the same
Then they show the Nevada Caucus yesterday and they were criticized for asking to see ID to get in to vote. It works and I like it. Has nothing to do with party or race or income. I simply don’t want illegals electing people to govern me.
It has to do with honesty, fairness, and legal qualifiers necessary to be a voter.
A big issue with ESA’s is the complete lack of accountability for their use. Charter schools are not audited the same way our public schools are, we do know the salaries of public school teachers but not private charter school teachers. We know to the penny how public schools spend their money, how much goes to the classroom, etc, but not charters. Now with home schooling, how are home school parents expenditures audited? Not really practical. I don’t think that a good and proper use of taxpayer dollars is to give it to an entity or individual that as a practical matter can’t or won’t be audited.
In addition, since charters don’t have to provide transportation or meals, I can just see how we will reenter the age of segregation at least economic segregation.
ESA’s for all is a bad idea.
What an interesting comment Michael:
TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) — Three appointments appear to be in direct violation of the new TUSD Audit committee charter.
The district formed the audit committee in 2007 after accounting errors cost the district hundreds of thousands of dollars.
http://www.kgun9.com/news/follow-the-money-possible-tusd-audit-committee-violation
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Two members of TUSD’s audit committee have resigned after public discussion about their spouses being employed by the district.
http://tucson.com/news/local/education/two-members-of-tusd-audit-committee-resign/article_8a89d380-8791-5d12-977a-3fe0c08aa53c.html
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I wonder what parents of youngsters who attend TUSD schools think about the hijinks that goes on right under the noses of the tax payers…… and the press don’t seem to care hardly a wit .
TUSD governing board members Dr Mark Stegeman and Michael Hicks have been critical of superintendent Dr. H.T. Sanchez and the Democrat majority of the school district governing board for their refusal to hire an independent auditor. And they have good reason to be concerned.
http://soaznewsx.com/on-the-record-with-bruce-ash-tusd-the-audit-committee/
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“We know to the penny how public schools spend their money, how much goes to the classroom, etc,”
Apparently, not so much.