Latest news with #schoolvouchers
New York Times
23-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Religious Education Lost at the Supreme Court. But It's Winning Everywhere Else.
A surprise Supreme Court ruling on Thursday prevented the nation's first religious charter school from opening in Oklahoma, in a 4-to-4 vote that seemed to put the brakes on a conservative movement to expand government funding for religious education. But the ruling may prove to be only a speed bump for the conservative education agenda. Conservatives are poised to get much of what they want, and more, through a powerful school voucher movement that has raced through Republican state legislatures and is on the precipice of coming to all 50 states. On the same day that the Supreme Court rejected government support for religious education in charter schools, the House narrowly passed an all-encompassing piece of domestic policy legislation that creates, for the first time, a federal school voucher program. The bill sets aside $5 billion to fund vouchers for families, who can use the money to pay for K-12 private school tuition, home-schooling or virtual learning. It would bring vouchers even to liberal states like New York and California that have long resisted the concept, and is expected to reach as many as 1 million students nationwide with much of the money going to pay for religious education. Nearly 80 percent of private school students attend a religiously affiliated school. 'On balance, this is a massive day of victory,' said Tommy Schultz, chief executive of the American Federation for Children, which supports the school voucher movement. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, he predicted 'growth in religious school choice in America,' driven by increased political support for vouchers. More than 1 million American students already use taxpayer dollars to pay for private education or home-schooling costs, double the number from 2019. Last month, Texas became the last large Republican-leaning state to pass private-school choice legislation, and advocates quickly shifted their attention to Washington. The program that passed the House is structured as a $5 billion tax credit. It amounts to a dollar-for-dollar tax write-off, for every dollar in cash or stock donated to certain nonprofits that then grant private-education scholarships to students. A vast majority of American households with children would be eligible to receive a scholarship, as long as they do not earn more than 300 percent of their area's median income, which is equal to over $300,000 in some parts of the country. The option to fund the scholarships is expected to be popular with wealthy taxpayers. It offers a much larger tax break than donations to other charities, including churches and community nonprofits. 'It's unprecedented,' said Carl Davis, research director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal think tank. He said many donations could come in the form of stock, potentially allowing donors to avoid paying capital gains taxes. The plan now heads to the Senate, where Republicans are generally supportive, though they may still adjust some of the program's details. Some Republican senators, like Ted Cruz of Texas, support a larger program of $10 billion, with no income constraints on who can use vouchers. Because the bill would be passed using a special budget process, it can become law with only 51 votes in the Senate. Republicans hold 53 seats. While voucher advocates once focused on providing more options to low-income students, students with disabilities and other disadvantaged groups, they are now pushing vouchers for most everyone. The movement is backed by powerful conservative donors, like the billionaire Jeff Yass, who have funded the political campaigns of Republican voucher supporters. They have overcome resistance from some conservatives who — like many liberals — long worried that vouchers would harm public schools, by decreasing enrollment and funding levels. Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union, said the bill would 'siphon crucial funding from public schools — serving 90 percent of students — and redirect it to private institutions with no accountability.' Riding a wave of pandemic dissatisfaction with public education, 10 states now operate private-school choice programs that are available to all or nearly all students, up from just two states in the 2022-23 school year. Five more states — Alabama, Idaho, Louisiana, Tennessee and Wyoming — are set to begin similar programs next school year, according to FutureEd, an education think tank at Georgetown University that has tracked legislation. In many cases, early reports show that expansive voucher programs often subsidize fairly affluent families whose children were already enrolled in private school. The Supreme Court allowed school vouchers to be used for religious education in 2002. The court said that vouchers do not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from establishing religion, because parents act as intermediaries and can choose from an array of school options, both secular and religious. The case in Oklahoma sought to take government funding of religious education a step further, with direct public funding of a religious charter school. Across the country, charter schools are public, nonsectarian and funded with taxpayer dollars, similar to traditional district schools. But they are run independently, often by nonprofits, and are meant to offer alternatives to families, who can attend regardless of ZIP code. In Oklahoma, an online Catholic school proposed by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa sought to open as a charter. It would have been fully funded by taxpayer dollars, but its curriculum would have incorporated Catholic doctrine. Supporters of the school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, challenged charter schools' status as public schools, arguing that they are in practice more like private schools in contract with the government, not public entities. The Supreme Court rejected that plan without explanation, in a 4-to-4 vote that was possible because Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself. The tied vote sets no national precedent, leaving open the possibility that the court, which has expanded the role of religion in other cases, could take up the issue again later with its full conservative majority. The Oklahoma case was championed by supporters of religious freedom, who argue that barring religious groups from operating charter schools, when other groups are free to do so, is religious discrimination. Some school choice advocates celebrated the court's ruling and the House bill as the best of both worlds, noting that it avoids the complicated legal battle and upending of the education landscape that could have resulted from redefining charter schools as private. 'It's really a win for the school choice movement on both counts,' said Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a center-right think tank, who supports school choice and was among those who worried that allowing religious charters would have posed problems for charter schools in blue states. 'It preserves charters as a strong option in the public school system,' he said. 'But it opens the door to private school choice everywhere.' A federal voucher program could be a boon to Catholic schools in particular, which make up the largest share of private school enrollment, at 35 percent. 'We've been supporting it all along,' said Sister Dale McDonald, vice president of public policy for the National Catholic Educational Association, which represents Catholic school educators. The federal bill was in many ways 'more significant' than the Oklahoma case would have been, she said, because if it passes, families across the nation will be able to use it to help pay for tuition at existing schools. Even in Oklahoma, the spread of vouchers means that St. Isidore may still be able to use public money to support its goal of offering online Catholic education to students in rural parts of the state. Around the same time St. Isidore was initially approved as a charter, Oklahoma passed legislation giving parents up to $7,500 per child for private school tuition. After the Supreme Court ruling on Thursday, the board for St. Isidore said in a statement that it was 'exploring other options' for offering virtual Catholic education statewide.
Forbes
13-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Pennsylvania GOP Makes Another Attempt To Pass School Vouchers
Attempting to pass a school voucher bill is an annual ritual in Pennsylvania's legislature, and this year is no exception. But voucher supporters seem stuck in a bit of a rut. In 2017, SB 2, Education Savings Accounts for Students in Underperforming Schools, would have created education savings account vouchers that would allow parents to use the state subsidy intended for their child's school district to provide flexible funding for a variety of education-related costs. The bill offered no oversight, and very broad definitions of qualifying expenses. Students were eligible if their district was in the bottom 15% of Pennsylvania schools. That bill stalled in committee. Until 2018, when the bill emerged from committee with some slight modifications. Some small oversight for spending was added, and a requirement that students spend at least a semester in a public school to be eligible. In 2019, HB 1800 made it out of committee. This was a narrow approach, aimed at provided vouchers for students in districts that were in receivership (a sort of financial takeover primarily for financial issues). It was a hot issue because Harrisburg schools were put in receivership in June, 2019, to gasps from a court audience, as reported by Lawrence Binda for The Burg. In 2022, HB 2169 was proposed. Once again, it was specifically aimed at students in 'failing' schools and was to take the form of an education savings account, a block of money to be used for a variety of education expenses. This time it was called the Lifeline Scholarship. The conservative Commonwealth Foundation had a press release ready to go hours after the bill was introduced. Sean Kitchen, reporting for The Keystone, later unveiled emails showing just how closely state officials had leaned on the foundation for help in crafting the bill. In 2023, Pennsylvania Republicans had a golden opportunity with new Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who is voucher-friendly. SB795 was designed to be Shapiro-friendly. Lifeline Scholarships would now be traditional school vouchers, good just for private school tuition and fees. Money for the vouchers would not be taken from the funding for public schools, but directly funded by the commonwealth. Vouchers would be set at certain dollar amounts depending on the level of the student ($5,000 for K-8, $10,000 for 9-12, and $15,000 for students with special needs). Shapiro was on the receiving end of a full court press from most of the voucher-supporting advocacy groups in existence: American Federation for Children (the DeVos family), Americans for Prosperity (Koch), EdChoice, ExcelInEd (Jeb Bush), and others. A dark money advocacy group, Commonwealth Action, popped up to push for the bill. Rather than watch the budget stall over a voucher fight, Shapiro promised Democrats he would line item veto the vouchers if the budget arrived at his desk. And he did. SB 795 reappeared in 2024, but it was clearly doomed. Now it's 2025, and vouchers are back again. This time, SB 10 proposes the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success (PASS) scholarship program. The bill is virtually identical to the old SB 795. The new bill expands eligibility for the vouchers, adding students whose families make under 250% of the federal poverty limit. It adds a responsibility for the State Treasurer to create some regulations which will be deemed 'temporary.' There are new requirements for the private schools receiving vouchers to report data about the voucher students. Otherwise, it is a word for word resubmission of the previous voucher bill. SB 10 passed out of the state senate education committee earlier this month with an 8-3 vote. All seven GOP members of the committee (including former gubernatorial candidate Sen. Doug Mastriano) were joined by one Democrat (Sen. Anthony Williams) in voting to send the bill on. This is, for all intents and purposes, is the same bill that Shapiro vetoed in 2023, this time without the huge lobbying effort (the Commonwealth Action website has not moved on from 2023). It's unclear whether voucher supporters believe something has changed in the political calculus, or whether they are going through motions so as to reassure voucher-friendly supporters that they are doing something. In the meantime, PASS vouchers are treading down a well-worn path, and it remains to be seen if the path will this time lead to something other than failure.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Budget-busting voucher expansion could bankrupt Wisconsin public schools
As the Legislature begins working on the Wisconsin State Budget, a dangerous idea to give school vouchers their own separate line item could become a huge drain on resources. | Getty Images Creative The top issue Wisconsinites brought to legislators' attention at budget hearings around the state last month was the need to adequately fund public schools. But now, as the Legislature's powerful budget committee is beginning to work on the budget in earnest, a low-profile plan that never came up in those public hearings aims to turn school vouchers into a statewide entitlement, sucking up all the resources that might otherwise go to public schools and putting Wisconsin on a path to a full–blown budget crisis. The plan, contained in two bills that failed in the last legislative session, would stop funding school vouchers through the same mix of state and local funding that supports regular public schools, and instead pay for school vouchers just out of the state's general fund. 'It's certainly something that I personally support. … I'm sure it will be part of the discussion,' Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam), co-chair of the powerful Joint Finance Committee, told Lisa Pugh on Wisconsin Eye when she asked about 'decoupling' Wisconsin voucher school funding from the rest of the school finance system. 'Decoupling' would pave the way for a big expansion in taxpayer subsidies for private school tuition. While jettisoning the caps on available funds and enrollment in the current school formula, voucher payments would become an entitlement. The state would be obligated to pay for every eligible student to attend private school. It's worth noting that most participants in Wisconsin's voucher programs never attended public school, so what we are talking about is setting up a massive private school system with separate funding alongside the public K-12 school system. That's more than Wisconsin can afford. Anne Chapman, research director for the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials (WASBO), has followed the issue closely. 'It could come up last-minute, on very short notice,' she warns. She worries that Wisconsin is following the same path as other states that have steadily expanded public funding for private schools without accurately assessing what the expansion would cost. In a recent WASBO paper, 'The price of parallel systems,' Chapman writes that Wisconsin already ranks third among states with the highest proportion of state education dollars used in private schooling options (9%). The top two states, Florida (22%) and Arizona (12%), she writes, are 'cautionary examples.' Florida's universal voucher program will cost the state $3.9 billion this year. The state, which until now has been running budget surpluses, is projecting a $6.9 billion deficit by 2027-28, fueled by the voucher expansion along with tax cuts. Arizona is also facing much bigger than expected costs for its universal voucher program. After projecting it would cost $64 million in 2023-24, the state found that it underestimated the cost of vouchers by more than 650%. The real cost of universal vouchers in Arizona in 2023-24 was $738 million. The result: a huge budget deficit and significant cuts to public schools. Wisconsin, which launched the first school voucher program in the nation in Milwaukee 35 ago, has steadily increased both the size and per-pupil expenditures of its system of voucher schools. That's despite a research consensus that school vouchers have not improved academic outcomes for students and, in fact, have done significant harm. Testifying recently against a school voucher bill in Texas, University of Michigan professor and school voucher expert Josh Cowen described the 'catastrophic' results of vouchers on educational outcomes across the country over the last decade. Cowen has been evaluating school vouchers since the 1990s, when the first pilot program in Milwaukee had a measurable, positive impact on the 400 low-income kids who used vouchers to attend traditional private schools. As school vouchers expanded to serve tens of thousands of students and 'subprime' operators moved in to take advantage of taxpayer dollars, however, the results took a dramatic downturn. Cowen described the 'horrific learning loss' he and other researchers have recorded over the last decade among kids who started in public school and then moved to private school using vouchers. He was used to seeing trends in education that simply didn't work to improve outcomes, he told the Texas legislators, but 'it's very rare to see something that harmed kids academically.' The worst drops in test scores, he said, came in 2014-15 — the same year that states began taking the programs statewide. He concluded that the smaller programs that had paid close attention to students and offered them a lot of support became something entirely different when vouchers were scaled up. Yet despite the abysmal results, more and more states are moving toward universal voucher systems. Imagine, Cowen told the Texas legislators, if '30 years ago a vaccine showed some positive effects in clinical trials for a few hundred kids.' Then, when the vaccine was approved and used on thousands of children, 'the health effects became negative, even atrocious.' 'No one would say, 'let's just hang our hat on the pilot and focus on results from 30 years ago,' Cowen said. But that's exactly what's happening with school vouchers. The kids vouchers were originally supposed to help — low-income children in underresourced schools — have suffered the most. Studies from research teams in Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio and Washington, D.C., show learning losses for kids who left public school to attend voucher programs that surpassed the learning loss experienced by students in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina or by children across the country from the COVID-19 pandemic, Cowen said. Instead of helping those struggling students, who often attend the 'subprime' schools Cowen discussed, the voucher programs in Wisconsin and other states mostly provide a taxpayer-financed benefit to private school families — 70% of whom have never put their kids in public school. Anti-government ideologues and school choice lobbyists are selling a faulty product with the rapid expansion of school vouchers. Part of the scam is the effort to hide the true costs from taxpayers. That's the part Chapman, the school business expert, is worried about. As school districts struggle with lean budgets, under the current system, at least local taxpayers can see how much they are paying to support the voucher schools in their districts. If the Legislature succeeds in moving the cost of school vouchers into the general statewide budget, that transparency will be lost. And, at the same time, the state will open the door to unlimited spending on vouchers, no matter how expensive the program becomes. School choice advocates in Wisconsin have long pushed for 'a voucher in every backpack' — or universal eligibility for the private school voucher program. 'Eligibility' doesn't mean the same thing as 'access,' however: In Wisconsin voucher schools have a track record of kicking out students who are disabled, challenging to educate, LGBTQ or for any other reason they deem them a bad fit. Those students go back to the public schools, whose mission is to serve all students. In contrast, private schools in the voucher system can and do discriminate. Yet, Chapman reports, we are now spending about $629 million for Wisconsin's four voucher programs, which serve 58,623 students. That's $54 million more than the $574.8 million we are spending on all 126,830 students with disabilities in Wisconsin, as school districts struggle with the cost of special education. As if that weren't enough, at the federal level, the Educational Choice for Children Act of 2025 (ECCA), currently being considered by Congress, would give a 100% tax deduction on donations to nonprofits known as Scholarship Granting Organizations, which give out private K-12 school vouchers. Normally, donors to nonprofits can expect a tax deduction of 37 cents on the dollar at most. The 100% tax deduction means financial advisers across the country will push clients, whether they are school choice advocates or not, to give money to voucher schools. Under the bill, contributors would also be allowed to give corporate stock and avoid capital gains tax. 'This would allow wealthy 'donors' to turn a profit, at taxpayer expense, by acting as middlemen in steering federal funding into private K-12 schools,' the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy reports. ITEP estimates that the ECCA would cost the federal government $134 billion in foregone revenue over the next 10 years and would cost states an additional $2.3 billion. The very least we can do as citizens is to demand accountability and transparency in the state budget process, before we blow all of our money on tax breaks and tuition vouchers for people who don't need them. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
