School Choice is a Failure
School Choice is a Failure
Deceptive marketing makes School Choice look like a gift to students, when in reality, it is a detriment to education.
Giving parents the freedom to choose which school best suits their child’s educational needs and providing those families with funds for their choice. That is the standard line given by proponents of school choice.
They go on to describe how helpless it feels as a parent to have your child locked into a failing school system when there may be a higher-performing private school just a few miles away.
Who wouldn’t want that choice for their child? Who wouldn’t want to ensure that their child is receiving an education that will set them on the right path for a lifetime of success?
When you look at school choice through that lens, it is no surprise that school choice programs are spreading throughout numerous states and that existing programs are expanding.
The issue is that this isn’t the reality of school choice programs.
Instead, these programs:
Subsidize students from wealthy families who are already enrolled in private schools.
Allow for discrimination of students based on race, gender, sexuality, disabilities, and religion.
Put additional strains on struggling public school systems.
Have been worsening test scores instead of improving them.
Have a high rate of students leaving school choice programs, creating instability for children.
Are riddled with fraud.
Vouchers
The vast majority of school choice programs are simply school vouchers programs remarketed as “school choice”. The reason for this rebranding is that Americans rightfully have a negative view of school vouchers due to their detrimental effects on schools and students, whereas the term “choice” polls well.
Voucher programs vary by state and school district, but they all follow the same general principle: parents can remove their student from a public school, receive a voucher for school payments, and use that towards private schools or, in some cases, homeschooling.
The stated principle of these programs is to allow parents to remove their child from a failing public school system or a school that doesn’t align with their child's needs. Then, they can enroll their student in a private school, and the state will help cover the cost.
Yet, the majority of voucher recipients are wealthy families with children who were already enrolled in private schools.
When Arizona enacted its universal voucher program, 75% of the applicants were already enrolled in private schools. The first year of the program had a cost of $34 million in public funds. Three years in, the program is expected to cost $120 million. These funds are largely going to subsidize those wealthy families instead of working to improve public schools or help struggling students.
Arizona is not alone in this problem. New Hampshire, Missouri, and Wisconsin all have voucher programs in which the majority of the recipients were already in private schools. Despite these failures, more states are exploring enacting the exact same type of voucher system.
Even when the vouchers go to less wealthy families, they aren’t always helpful. Vouchers typically only cover part of the cost of tuition, and finding the money for the remaining balance can be tough or even impossible for lower-income families. Beyond the direct cost, finding transportation to further-apart schools can also be a burden for families with working parents.
Declining Performance
Even when voucher programs are designed to ensure that vouchers are given to less wealthy students currently enrolled in public schools, the results are worse than if the programs didn’t exist at all.
Rigorous studies of multiple voucher programs in Louisiana, Ohio, and Indiana show that students who use these vouchers to switch from public to private school see a notable drop in performance, particularly in math. In Louisiana, a study showed that the average math student, tracking in at the 50th percentile, dropped down to the 34th percentile after entering the voucher program.
One factor in the drop in performance is that, on average, private schools offer 65 fewer minutes of reading instruction and 48 fewer minutes of math instruction per week. When analyzing the D.C. voucher system, the differences in quality instruction added up to the equivalent of missing 68 days of school, or 1/3rd of the school year.
Due to difficulties in their new schools, trouble keeping up with the costs, and factors such as bullying and even the private schools pushing students out, participants in school vouchers have a high rate of enrollees leaving the programs.
20% of students leave the voucher program each year in Indiana, Wisconsin, and Louisiana. In Florida, that number is higher at 30%, with 58% leaving over the span of two years. This instability is an increased burden on students.
Legal Discrimination
Public schools are required by law not to discriminate against students based on race, gender, sexuality, religion, and disabilities, but private schools are not held to the same requirements.
Discrimination is not merely hypothetical.
$16 million has gone to Indiana private schools with specifically defined anti-LGBT admissions.
15% of Wisconsin voucher schools had discriminatory policies against students with disabilities. Many other schools do not have specific policies but lack programs and training to support children with disabilities.
And 90% of North Carolina voucher schools are religious. Almost all of them are Christian.
The Fayetteville Christian School is an example of the discrimination these schools present:
“The student and at least one parent with whom the student resides must be in full agreement with the FCS Statement of Faith and confirm that they have received Jesus Christ as their Savior. In addition, the parent and student must regularly fellowship in a local faith based, Bible believing church. Accordingly, FCS will not admit families that belong to or express faith in non-Christian religions such as, but not limited to: Mormons (LDS Church), Jehovah’s Witness, Muslims (Islam), non-Messianic Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. Furthermore students and families are expected to manifest by example Christian virtue in their lives both in and out of school by living life according to Biblical truth.”
Fraud
Due to the lucrative nature of vouchers, these programs have been fraught with fraud. In Wisconsin, many schools were established simply to cash in on voucher money. These schools have a short average lifespan of only 4 years, and 41% of voucher schools in Wisconsin shut down between 1990, when the voucher program started, and 2015 when the study was conducted.
Detriment to Public Schools
In some states, such as Florida, voucher programs directly divert money that would have gone to public schools to the voucher schools instead.
In all states, student enrollment is a factor in public school budgeting. More students attending voucher schools means fewer are enrolled in public schools, making already strained budgets even smaller.
Then there are states that have enacted $100+ million voucher programs when those funds could have been used to bolster their public school systems.
Better Approach
School choice programs aren’t improving America's education problems; they’re worsening them. So, what is a better solution?
Increase public school funding.
90% of US students are enrolled in public school. Increased funding leads to better schools which leads to better education. A better education leads to lower crime rates, lower poverty, reduced reliance on government aid programs, and even improves the entire nation’s economy.
The main issue is that school funding is largely left up to the states. The federal government only provides $1,193 per K-12 student, while the average federal, state, and local funding per student is over $15,000.
This creates a large disparity between the states, with Idaho and Utah spending just $8,000 per student compared to New York, which spends almost $25,000, a difference of $17,000 per student. Such a wide gap means a student’s success in life is significantly impacted by where they grow up.
Voucher programs have consistently been bad for students and public education. In contrast, spending on public education has been proven time and again to not only be better for students but also to improve our nation for everyone, not just the students themselves.
Why are we, as a country, acting as if it is difficult to improve our education system when the answer is so clear-cut?
It is time to invest in our students in order to invest in ourselves.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pam.22086
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/highly-negative-impacts-vouchers/
