17-06-2025
Who Benefits From School Vouchers?
Some education choices come with money attached
School vouchers were sold by supporters as a way for students from low-income families to escape under-performing schools. Pro-voucher groups like the Devos-funded American Federation for Children have called school choice the civil rights issue of our time. But investigations continue to show that voucher programs actually serve a different group.
Craig Harris reported on an investigation by the 12News I-Team looking at the results of Arizona's universal voucher program. 12News found that the billion-dollar taxpayer-funded voucher program which supported students who had never been in public school to begin with and which hurt high-performing public and charter schools.
Arizona's taxpayer-funded school voucher program was made universal in 2022, meaning that the vouchers were then available to all students with no restrictions or requirements. In that year, the state department of education said that 75% of new voucher applicants had never attended a public school.
12News also found that rather than escaping failing schools, thousands of students were leaving some of the highest-rated districts in the state, leading to funding losses for those schools. Four of the top five losing districts (Deer Valley, Chandler, Peoria and Scottsdale) are A-rated schools the fifth, Mesa, is B-rated).
Vouchers are also costing charter schools students and dollars. For example, 12News found that the highly-rated Basis Peoria charter school campus has lost more than 400 students.
Other states report similar findings. A new report from the Department of Public Instruction in North Carolina finds that over 85% of new school voucher recipients were not previously in public school. Kris Nordstrom, senior policy analyst at the Education and Law Project, reports that the North Carolina Education Assistance Authority found that 20% of new voucher recipients are families in the highest income bracket.
Central Florida Public Media reported that in 2023, 69% of new voucher recipients already attended private school. In 2024, Iowa Starting Line reported that two thirds of Iowa students receiving taxpayer-funded vouchers already attended private school. Nor is the trend a new one. Back in 2014, 75% of students applying for taxpayer-funded vouchers in Wisconsin were not leaving public schools, as reported by Edgar Mendez od the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Only a small number of voucher students are actually leaving low-performing schools. One might ask, if vouchers are not solving the issue of low-income students being trapped in low-performing schools, what is Plan B?
At the same time, taxpayer-funded vouchers for students who have never attended public schools adds to the total number of students that state taxpayers are funding. In other words, the money cannot follow the child from the public school because it was never there. In some states, that means school funding is reduced even though the school expenses are not.
As the U.S. Congress considers the creation of federal vouchers via the Big Beautiful Bill, legislators may want to consider how existing taxpayer-funded school vouchers are currently being used.
