The Short Short Version
School vouchers are an empty promise to rescue students from “failing”
schools that, in the end, hurts all students.
The Highlights
- Private schools aren’t necessarily any better than public schools.
- Vouchers take money from public schools to the detriment of all students.
- Disadvantaged students and students with disabilities, those vouchers claim to help, may actually suffer the most from school vouchers.
- School choice sounds like a good idea but doesn’t really help the students with the greatest needs.
The Details
Private schools aren’t better than public schools.
The case for school vouchers is based on the premise that we can rescue
children from “failing” public schools by providing them the opportunity to
attend a private school. In general, private schools have a reputation for
turning out students who are more successful in the long-term. But this is an
illusion. Nationally, when comparing outcomes from public schools and private
schools, and considering family level indicators such as parent education level
and income, there is little evidence that students in private schools
out-perform students in public schools. The perceived private school advantage
more likely reflects the advantages and opportunities that students experience
based on outside socio-economic factors and family status.
Vouchers hurt more kids than they help.
Vouchers focus on helping isolated kids, not all kids. But taking money
away from a school affects every child. Schools depend on the economics of
scale to operate within their budgets. Consider a 72-passenger school bus. If
20 students leave and the bus now carries only 52 students, it still costs the
same amount to run the bus. It is the same with schools: when a few students
leave an individual school, most costs remain the same. It does not cost less
to heat the school or clean the school. You can’t pay the librarian, PE coach,
or school nurse less when there are fewer students. And in most cases, you
can’t even reduce the number of teachers. However, the school now receives less
funding from the state and all of the same, or nearly same, expenses must come
out of a more limited amount of funds. Schools are left with no choice but to
cut programs in order to make ends meet. This hurts all students.
Vouchers probably won’t help disadvantaged kids—and may actually harm
them.
Children learn when they have opportunities to learn. When looking at
outcomes, twice as much can be attributed to outside factors as to in-school
factors. Where are the “failing” schools in wealthy communities? There aren’t
any because those children have more outside opportunities than children in
disadvantaged communities, which results in better outcomes at school. School
vouchers will not change this.
Additionally, students in “failing” schools already have the right to
go to another school. Very few actually do this. Why? Because for disadvantaged
students, there are many obstacles to changing schools, such as whether there is
a school nearby that will accept vouchers, whether that school will enroll the
student, how the student will get to school, and what other supports the school
will (or will not) provide. Many other factors, such as convenience, impact
school choice. Vouchers do not address these factors.
Finally, public schools already struggle to find funding for services
that they know work for disadvantaged students such as wrap around services that
include health care, safe housing, mental health care, and food and clothing
assistance. Vouchers take funds from the public school budget and thus make the
needed funding that much harder to find, resulting in cuts to programs that
work. This hurts disadvantaged students.
Vouchers may hurt students with special needs.
Private schools do not require special education expertise in order to
qualify to participate in voucher programs and enroll students with special
needs. Private schools often cannot meet the needs of these students. Texas
public schools that cannot meet a student’s needs already have the ability to contract
with private schools as needed. At the same time, the public school is held accountable
to make sure the private school is providing adequate services. While the idea
of choice is attractive, it comes with great responsibility. The role of
accountability transfers to the parent who must decide whether the services
provided are adequate for their student’s needs. Many parents may not be able
to fulfill this responsibility, resulting in inadequate services for the
student.
School choice sounds nice, but…
Vouchers purport to offer school choice, but not all students really have
a choice. Private schools choose who comes in and how many empty seats they
have. Many private schools choose not to participate in voucher programs and most
non-wealthy families have very limited choices. Participating schools are
mostly Catholic or Protestant (depending on the area of the country) and because
the environment of the schools is very similar to public schools, the outcomes
for students are very similar to public school outcomes. Vouchers often claim
to offer an escape valve from “failing” public schools but private voucher
schools are not actually doing any better than public schools. If there is
demand for voucher schools, more schools will likely open. But these are often
low-quality, for-profit schools that enjoy the lack of transparency of private
organizations while receiving the majority of their funding from the state.
Additionally, proponents of school choice often claim that if public
schools have to compete for students, they will improve in order to be
competitive. But there is also little evidence to support claims that public
schools will react to market-based competition. In other words, public schools
will not make changes that will make them more appealing to students or parents
when competing for students against private schools.
What Can You Do About It?
- Read this sister post to learn more about school vouchers.
- Follow any voucher, tax-credit scholarship, or education savings account bills in the upcoming session and let your representatives know that you oppose these bills.
- Share this post to help educate others about school vouchers.
Note
On December 2, 2014, the
Coalition for Public Schools hosted a pre-legislative education symposium on
school vouchers. The panelists included: Dr. Kevin Welner, Director of the
National Education Policy Center, Professor of Education Policy, Univ. of
Colorado at Boulder School of Education; Dr. Julie Fisher Mead, Dept. of
Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison; Dr.
Luis Huerta, Teachers College, Columbia University; Dr. David Anthony, Raise
Your Hand Texas; Leslie Boggs, Texas PTA President; and Gina Hinojosa, Austin ISD
School Board. The panelists cited many credible academic studies of school
vouchers. Many of these studies have been conducted in Milwaukee and Cleveland,
as these cities have long-established voucher programs. Other studies have been
conducted in Arizona, Florida, and Washington, DC.
This post is based on information
shared by the above experts during this symposium.
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