The Wrong School Choice
Nevada's new school voucher law will make inequality worse.
I'm struggling to understand an intellectual disconnect of the first order.
Nearly everyone involved in education reform wrings their hands about the achievement gaps between poor and nonpoor, between white and minority students. And most Americans are increasingly disturbed about widening inequality of income and wealth.
Yet when Nevada enacted the nation's first law last month creating almost universal access to vouchers (technically, education savings accounts, or ESAs), few reformers pointed out that it would undermine equal opportunity. Dozens of bloggers weighed in; the Fordham Institute even invited 14 of them to comment. And not one of the 14 mentioned that the new bill would make access to quality education less equal than it is today.
[READ: Nevada's Education Gambit]
Why do I say it will do that? Because it allows families to add to their education savings account to buy a more expensive education. Most parents want what's best for their children, so those who can afford it will do just that. Those who can't will not. And the education market will stratify by income, far more than it already does. In a decade, it will look like the markets for houses, cars and other private goods, with huge disparities based on wealth.
I just don't get it. We need bold reform of education, yes. But do we want to widen the achievement gap? Do we want to increase inequality in America? More than half of public students in America are poor (i.e., they qualify for a free or reduced price lunch). Do we want to leave them all behind in inferior schools?
A core value of public education – one of the reasons we treat it as a public rather than a private good – is equality of opportunity. That's hard to achieve in America, where incomes – hence neighborhoods – are vastly unequal. For 50 years the courts have forced states to take over more and more of the financing of public education from local governments, to create more equality of spending between communities. The results are disappointing in many states, but even in the worst, public school spending is not vastly unequal. And a few states have succeeded in creating fairly level playing fields, and in Washington, D.C., low-income kids actually get extra money.
What would happen if those states passed laws like Nevada's?
The new bill allows any parent whose child has been in public education for at least 100 days to take an education savings account worth $5,100 (or $5,700 for low-income kids and those with disabilities) and spend it as they please – on private schools, home-schooling, tutors, textbooks, online courses, computers, transportation, almost anything related to education. Participants will have to take a nationally norm-referenced test in math and English every year, but they get to choose which test, so there will be no universal measuring stick by which to compare performance.
[READ: Education's Wild West]
In addition, low-income students can apply for a tax credit scholarship worth up to $7,775, though the legislature appropriated only $5 million a year, so it will serve less than 1,000 kids. But the accounts are available to all students, as long as they spend 100 days in a public school.
Putting all state, local and federal funds together, public schools in Nevada received $8,339 per student in 2013, well below the national average. Tracey Weinstein, director of policy and innovation at StudentsFirst, says the average tuition at private schools in the state is $8,000-10,000.
So it's obvious that a $5,100 education – or even a $5,700 education – will be a cut-rate job. Every Nevada's New Voucher Law Will Worsen Educational Inequality - US News:
