Tag Archives | tax credit scholarship

One lawmaker asks: Don’t you think there’s enough choice already

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On June 2, 2011 in Education and Public Policy, General, Parental Choice, School Choice

No doubt, the decision to grant private learning options for public school students is a tough one for any lawmaker who has spent a lifetime supporting the neighborhood public school. But the debate on the floor of the Louisiana House today sounded at times almost anachronistic.

The House was hearing a tax credit scholarship bill, HB 621 filed by Rep. Kirk Talbot, a Republican, that aims to give options to low-income students at a scholarship amount, roughly $4,000, that is less than even the state portion of the Louisiana public school formula. Not incidentally, the state’s legislative fiscal office said the program would likely save taxpayers money. (By way of disclosure, we have helped advise Rep. Talbot, who to his credit insisted on strong academic and fiscal accountability provisions in the bill.)

The bill provoked some predictable and reasonable concerns, as opponents wrestled with the potential impact on public schools. But seldom has the line between public and private been drawn so harshly or with such indifference to the needs of students.

Rep. Patricia Smith, a Baton Rouge Democrat and retired oil company spokesperson, challenged the very concept of parental choice: “Don’t you think there’s enough choice already?”

Rep. J. Rogers Pope, a Denham Springs Republican and retired school superintendent, sounded as though he were establishing terms for the war on terrorism: “You’re going to have to answer to the public schools in your district. Either you’re for them or you’re against them.”

Rep. Joe Harrison, a Gray Republican and financial planner, offered a singular gauge on how to measure such legislation (Hint: It’s unrelated to whether children are helped): “This is not the kind of bill that is going to help our system out.”

The bill, incidentally, was approved by a margin of 52-43 but fell one vote short of the absolute majority of the full chamber necessary to pass because 10 representatives were absent. Supporters hope to bring it back for another vote next week.

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Parent Revolution should empower parents with all options

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On April 29, 2011 in Charter Schools, Education and Public Policy, General, Parental Choice, School Choice

It is wonderful to see the leaders of the Parent Revolution receive this recognition in the Wall Street Journal. I have admired their work from afar, and I had the pleasure of sitting on a panel last year with the group’s founder, Ben Austin. They have done amazing work organizing low-income parents and giving voice to their desire for more educational opportunities.

Here’s my wish: that Parent Revolution would advocate for true empowerment for these parents. Families should have the right not just to reconstitute the schools to which their children are assigned. They should be empowered to choose whatever school will best serve their children. It might be a charter school, it might be a magnet school, but it also might be a faith-based school. What we have learned in Florida and other states is that there is a vast inventory of private, mostly faith-based schools in urban areas with high concentrations of low-income families. In Jacksonville, for example, there are only about a dozen charter schools, and not all of them serve low-income children. However, there are more than 100 private schools in that city serving low-income students on the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program.

One of these schools, The Potter’s House Christian Academy, has a graduation rate at more than 90 percent. More than 300 of the school’s 600 students attend on the scholarship program. What if you were a low-income parent with a child doing poorly in his assigned public school? What would you rather have, the ability to force change at that one public school or a passport to leave and select the best school available?

The clergy in Florida has indeed recognized that educational opportunity is a matter of social justice. There have emerged two official coalitions of Florida ministers, one African American and one Hispanic, demanding full parental choice for low income families. They both strongly support the tax credit scholarship program.

In Florida, the clergy is not only recognizing that low-income parents need all options on the table for their children, they are in many cases providing that option. My own hope is that the Parent Revolution will expand its amazing work to demand full empowerment for low-income families.

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AZ governor vetoes tax credit bill, okays special ed vouchers

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On April 13, 2011 in Education and Public Policy, General, Parental Choice, School Choice

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has confused many in the school choice community during the last 24 hours by signing into law a bill creating “savings accounts” for students with special needs while simultaneously killing a measure that would have expanded opportunities in the state’s tax credit scholarship. 

In a letter announcing her veto, Brewer says she recognizes “the importance of empowering parents” but warns that HB 2581 “unbalances the budget.” A tax credit scholarship made available to students who want to leave the public school system likely can lessen the financial burden of the state, Brewer wrote, but the current measure “expands the pool of qualified students that may qualify.” Also, she added, removing the cap on corporate tax credits would make budgeting difficult.

This is where things get muddled. Nothing in the bill’s fiscal analysis backs up the governor’s assertion that an expanded pool of students would unbalance the budget. In fact, House analysts report that if more public school students took advantage of the scholarship — just 3,300 — they would offset the loss of tax revenues that resulted from the bill, which they estimated to be at $17.2 million for 2012. Brewer seems to be suggesting this wouldn’t happen, but she doesn’t say why. 

Brewer did, however, bestow her blessing on a limited version of a plan, birthed at the free-market oriented Goldwater Institute, that has generated a lot of controversy in other states such as Florida. In Arizona, the plan creates what are called “Empowerment Accounts,” which in this sense would benefit special education students with money their parents can apply to the instructional needs they determine are appropropriate. These might include private school tuition, tutoring or textbooks.  The amount of money placed in an account would be 90 percent of the per-pupil funding that a public school would have received for the child.

While the accounts are limited to special education, their proponents somehow managed to escape much of the notice directed at those who advocated for their passage in Florida. When Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s education transition team recommended a more universally applied “Education Savings Account,” the suggestion was attacked as a “voucher for all,” and Scott has since backed away from the idea.

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U.S. Supreme Court upholds private education tax credits

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On April 4, 2011 in Education and Public Policy, General, School Choice

UPDATE: From The New York Times on the ruling: The Supreme Court on Monday effectively upheld an Arizona program that aids religious schools, saying in a 5-to-4 decision that the plaintiffs had no standing to challenge it. The program itself is novel and complicated, and allowing it to go forward may be of no particular moment. But by closing the courthouse door to some kinds of suits that claim violations of the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion, the court’s ruling in the case may be quite consequential.

In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court said that plaintiffs objecting to an Arizona tax credit scholarship on the grounds that it amounted to government aid of religious schooling have not been harmed by the program and therefore had no right to sue. The decision in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn overturns a ruling by the Ninth Circuit and is significant in the distinction it draws between direct governmental aid and tax credits for contributions to a cause.

We’ll have more analyses later, but here are reports from Bloomberg and the ABA Journal, as well as an analysis from Andrew Coulson at the Cato Institute.

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Indiana Dems revolt against a voucher plan that has liberal roots in their state party

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On February 24, 2011 in Education and Public Policy, General, Parental Choice, School Choice

Now into their third day of a self-imposed exile in neighboring Illinois, Indiana’s House Democrats say they want another 11 Republican-backed bills soon to come up for a vote to be “killed” along with the proposed “right-to-work” legislation that initially prompted their flight from the state.

Republicans have offered to dump the latter, but are refusing to yield on any of the other bills, including a proposal to allow low- and middle-income families a public means to choose a private school for their children. House Minority Leader Patrick Bauer, a Democrat from South Bend, told reporters that the tax credit scholarship proposal and a bill that limits teachers’ collective bargaining rights are “dealbreakers.”

While it’s common for Democratic leaders to distance themselves from tax-credit and voucher programs, it’s interesting to see Indiana’s Democrats do so. After all, in Indiana, such programs had their roots in the Democratic Party, and those roots don’t go back far. Continue Reading →

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One lawmaker’s change of heart, and his message in Virginia

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On February 16, 2011 in Education and Public Policy, General, Parental Choice, School Choice

Before a Virginia senate committee had a chance to kill a proposed tax credit scholarship for low-income students, legislators heard from a former Florida lawmaker who had his own change of heart about supporting private learning options for families who could least afford them.

Terry L. Fields, a former Democratic state representative from Jacksonville, Fla., traveled to Virginia this week to share with lawmakers skeptical of HB 2314 how a group of families once showed him that supporting a scholarship for low-income children helped fulfill the state’s commitment to equal educational opportunity.

“It’s very personal with me,” Fields said in an interview with redefinED this morning. “When my son was in grade school, I realized as a parent that he didn’t do very well in that setting. So we made a decision to put him in a private school.” A few years later, a group of about 30 parents and 30 students came to his House office  and confronted Fields’ opposition to Florida’s own tax credit scholarship and asked for the chance to give their children what he had given his own son. Continue Reading →

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Va. senate committee kills tax credit plan

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On February 15, 2011 in Education and Public Policy, General, Parental Choice, School Choice

The Virginia Senate Finance Committee voted 9-6 this afternoon to kill a bill that would have provided private school tuition assistance to low-income students.

House Bill 2314 passed the Virginia House of Delegates last week by a vote of 54-45, but senate opponents said the state had no business funding tax breaks to subsidize private schools while traditional public schools suffered budget cuts, according to a story on washingtonpost.com

It didn’t matter that the bill had bipartisan sponsorship and was crafted to benefit only students who qualified for free and reduced-price lunch. Even Terry Fields, a former member of the Florida House of Representatives and a strong supporter of the similarly designed Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, tried convincing the senate committee of the bill’s merits — which would have included a savings to the state — to no avail.

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Does going to the best school matter? Only if it’s the best fit.

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On December 20, 2010 in Achievement Gap, Customization, General, Parental Choice, School Choice

In advising readers on whether an elite college is worth the cost, the New York Times offered a detailed analysis over the weekend that generally could be summed up in two words: It depends. As it relates to schools in the K-12 arena, that’s not a bad answer as well.

RedefinED host Doug Tuthill, a lifelong educator who could rightfully be described as an astute observer of public education and well-informed parent, often talks about his own choice of public high schools for his two sons in St. Petersburg, Fla. While Doug is known in these parts for launching the first International Baccalaureate school in Florida, a school that could be fairly described as academically elite, he chose an entirely different high school for his first son. He chose a high school that featured one of the more robust arts programs in the Pinellas County school district, the 22nd largest school district in the nation, and Doug believed it would be a good fit for his son. He was right.

Now, here is a fact that is relevant to this discussion. The high school is the only one in Pinellas County to have been judged by the state, based on standardized test scores, to be a failure. Did that matter? Not at all. Dad and son could not have been happier. (By the way, this is meant as no criticism of Gibbs High, which  improved its state grade to a “C” on the state’s latest academic report card.)

The second son had different ideas and so did his father. They chose St. Petersburg High School, home of the IB program that father helped create. But the second son found little to like about that school, judged to be an A by the state accountability system, and he wanted nothing to do with it. So the second left IB and ended up at a special charter school that allowed him to graduate with both a high school diploma and an associate of arts degree.

So this is the asterik that should be attached to any school’s rating: Success for any individual student might relate less to the perceived achievement or stature of the school and more to the individual needs of the student. In Doug’s case, an arts program at an “F” school sparked great success in one son, and an “A” school for another son turned out to be a poor fit.

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