Where are the real opportunities in the ‘Opportunity’ act?

Early in my career as a teacher and principal, I learned I should make all of my decisions based on what was in the best interest of the children we served, and not necessarily what the adults wanted. I am deeply concerned that the “Opportunity Scholarship Act,” or private school voucher bill, fails to meet that standard. This well-intentioned but misguided legislation will not be in the best interest of the children it attempts to serve.

In the 2013-2014 fiscal year, the state set aside $10 million for vouchers for low-income students to use to attend almost 700 private schools.[1] Each child will receive up to $4,200 a year for private school tuition.[2] In the 2014-2015 fiscal year, the allocation for these vouchers will soar to $50 million.[3] All public tax dollars had originally been allocated for public school students. Now, they will be siphoned off and given to private schools. Roughly 10 percent of these voucher-eligible schools have fewer than 10 students; many employ only a handful of teachers.[4]

Those of us who raise concerns about the “Opportunity Scholarship Act” do not do so because we oppose school choice. All parents should be able to choose the best education for their children. However, the opportunity this taxpayer-funded voucher program creates is the opportunity to fail North Carolina’s children, particularly those from low-income households.

North Carolina public school districts spend a little more than $8,000 on average to educate each student, ranking a pitiful 48^th nationally in per-pupil expenditures.[5] How will these private schools deliver a high-quality education for just $4,200 per student? In Charlotte, our most prestigious private schools charge five times that figure in annual tuition.[6] The median cost of a private, high school education in Mecklenburg County is $9,565, more than twice what the Opportunity Scholarship Act provides. It is hard to fathom how these vouchers will create increased opportunities for low-income students when the program provides half of what our cash-strapped public schools have to educate each child.

In the best case, the Opportunity Scholarship Act could provide higher quality education for a handful of low-income children by partly funding their private school education, but what does this mean for the public school system? What does this mean for the children who are not chosen by the lottery? Previously, there have been publicly funded education programs that met with great success throughout North Carolina, specifically teacher-focused programs. In 2011, the Teaching Fellows Program and the N.C. Teacher Academy were eliminated, while half the budget for the N.C. Center for the Advancement for Teaching was phased out. These programs were lauded as successful programs for student achievement. Their costs amounted to $21.2 million, less than half the cost of the Opportunity Scholarship Act.[7] Those programs could have helped all children in the public education system, not just the few who will win the Opportunity Scholarship lottery.

It does not require much gazing into a crystal ball to predict how those low-income children will be served. We cannot be confident they will be attending quality schools. Just because a school is private does not mean it provides quality education.[8] And with the lack of oversight provided by the state’s Division of Non-Public Education, it is difficult to gather comparative information on nearby private schools. It’s predictable that many students will ultimately be stuck attending poorly funded schools with little continuity in staff or programs.

Other important details not to be overlooked include the lack of accountability for those public taxpayer dollars. Schools that accept vouchers will be held to much lower standards than our public schools, even though all use taxpayer dollars. There are no actual mandated curricula requirements for private schools, nor are they required to issue yearly report cards created for parents to compare school performance, as is the case for NC public schools. Isn’t it odd that our state legislature would mandate curricula and accountability standards for traditional public schools, yet not require the same of private schools accepting taxpayer dollars?

Supporters of the voucher system suggest there is much data and gold-standard research that proves similar measures succeeded in other states and school districts. In fact, supporters of the voucher movement commissioned many of the studies. One such report—often cited by voucher supporters in North Carolina, including many legislators—was commissioned by the Friedman Foundation, an organization that says it is “the nation’s original advocate of school choice.”[9] [10] Not exactly an objective source.[11] These claims of success are simply not proven to be true. The research on various voucher programs across the country is, at best, mixed.[12] Milwaukee implemented a voucher program in 1990 that is often held up as an example of long-term success, yet studies have concluded that Milwaukee students in the voucher program performed significantly worse in both reading and math when compared to students in the local public school system.[13]

Do you remember the old saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is?” The Opportunity Scholarship Act bill seems an appropriate analogy to these timeworn words of wisdom. This money—our money—would be better spent on our cash-strapped public schools instead of a quick fix with little accountability and even less chance for success.

Bill Anderson is executive director of MeckEd, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that is an independent advocate for excellent public education. Opinions here are the writer’s, not necessarily those of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute or the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

[1] http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2013/Bills/House/HTML/H944v2.html

[2] North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority. September 30, 2013. http://www.ncseaa.edu/pdf/Opportunity%20Scholarships%20Overview.pdf

[3] http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2013/Bills/House/HTML/H944v2.html

[4] Division of Non-Public Education. North Carolina Directory of Non-Public Schools. 2012-2013. http://www.ncdnpe.org/documents/12-13-CS-Directory.pdf

[5] National Education Association. Rankings of the States 2012 and Estimates of School Statistics 2013. http://www.nea.org/assets/img/content/NEA_Rankings_And_Estimates-2013_(2).pdf

[6] http://www.charlottemagazine.com/Charlotte-Magazine/January-2012/A-Guide-to-Private-Schools/

[7] http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/07/31/1380399/praised-teacher-program-gets-ax.html

[8] Lubienski & Lubienski. 2013. The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools. University of Chicago Press.

[9] http://www.edchoice.org/About-Us/Mission—History

[10] Greg Forster, A Win-Win Solution; http://www.edchoice.org/CMSModules/EdChoice/FileLibrary/994/A-Win-Win-Solution–The-Empirical-Evidence-on-School-Choice.pdf.

[11] For a scholarly analysis of the limitations of the Forster report, see Lubienski, C. (2009). Review of “A Win-Win Solution: The Empirical Evidence on How Vouchers Affect Public Schools.” Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-win-win-solution. Lubienski writes, “ … existing research provides little reliable information about the competitive effects of vouchers.”

[12] Helen F. Ladd. School Vouchers: A Critical View. 2002. https://fds.duke.edu/db/attachment/265

[13] Martin Carnoy. School Vouchers: Examining the Evidence. Economic Policy Institute. 2001. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED460175.pdf