Stop Hating Vouchers

It seems advocacy groups, worried about declining performance on the part of our K-12 school system, are suggesting that vouchers are the cause.

One national group making that case is EdTrust, a Washington D.C. think tank committed to advancing policies and practices to dismantle the racial and economic barriers embedded in the American education system.

This summer, EdTrust released an “advocacy toolkit” to help fight school voucher programs. Their intro states:

“School voucher programs and their many iterations (education savings accounts, tax credits, etc.) drain funds from public schools while disproportionately harming Black and Brown students from low-income backgrounds and students with disabilities. This toolkit provides the resources and information communities need to launch effective advocacy campaigns against school voucher programs in their state.”

In addition, EdTrust’s position statement on private school vouchers goes on to say:

“EdTrust firmly opposes school vouchers or any other program that provides public funds to private schools. These programs undermine public education by diverting funds from public schools while failing to improve educational outcomes for students. Voucher programs often lack the necessary accountability and anti-discrimination measures to protect our students and communities and pose a serious threat to the public education system, which is central to our democracy.”

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (or Iowa CCI for short) is a state-based group convinced that vouchers are bad for kids. According to Kids Count, Iowa’s K-12 education rank has fallen over the past ten years from #6 in the country to #27. Iowa CCI and other groups have blamed Iowa’s school choice policies in general and school vouchers specifically as the reasons for the decline. Like many states, funding from the Iowa Legislature has not kept up with inflation, so there is a feeling that traditional schools are under-funded.

In Iowa, and most of the country, most school voucher systems allow money to flow from public schools to private schools. But in Iowa, only a third of the counties have private schools available for families to choose, so 66% of the state pays into a system that they probably won’t use.

But what if public money could flow to support other types of public schooling beyond private schools? What if public funding was used to support homeschooling, learning pods, microschools, and other community-based educational programs? What if public money supported a learning plan for each young learner, supported by an adult learning coach, a cadre of other young learners, and a community committed to making their kids smarter and stronger? What if vouchers were used for this purpose?

EdTrust and Iowa CCI are making a mistake when they are dismissive of putting money in the hands of parents whose kids deserve a better learning experience than what their current public school provides. Both organizations should begin an educational program whereby parents learn more about what makes a good or bad school, what options they have if their school is low-performing, and how to access school voucher money to use so they can walk away from sucky schools.

EdTrust is wrong when they say vouchers hurt Black, Brown, and low-income students. What really hurts those students is when generations of them are trapped in bad schools without any options available to escape.

In Iowa CCI’s case, it’s wrong to suggest that achievement has declined due only to vouchers and lost funding. Iowa, and several other states across the nation with declining test scores, have experienced an influx of diverse learners (for example, Iowa’s Black and Brown K-12 population has increased nearly 25% over the past 20 years). Data suggests that Iowa’s decline doesn’t have anything to do with vouchers, but everything to do with their schools’ inability to create smarter and stronger Black, Brown, and poor learners.

Making kids smarter and stronger isn’t as simple as spending more money. Making kids better readers, writers, and problem-solvers demand adequate planning, successful execution, and honest evaluation. Focusing on these three strategies will make a difference for all kids.

Til tomorrow. SVB