As we prepare for the Kansas Legislature to make another attempt to bring school vouchers to our state, we continue to look at voucher scams, abuse, and general transfer of public dollars to private organizations in other states.
This first article from Flagler County, Florida does such a great job articulating the problems with voucher programs, including the fact they exceed the amount individual taxpayers pay for public education, meaning that all of us end up paying for their swindle, and the proliferation of “fly-by-night” schools that take advantage of public funds with no accountability standards.
“When people get free money from the government, we call it welfare. Ditching the ordurous school-choice euphemism and applying the language’s proper definition–school welfare–exposes the state’s fabrications…
Another from Florida shows the abuse that happens with vouchers. It is fiscally irresponsible to waste taxpayer dollars on these kinds of expenses. These programs incentivize people to pull their kids from public schools, because public school parents don’t get these funds. Know where your legislators and candidates stand on vouchers.
“Step Up For Students has released its 2024-2025 purchasing guide for recipients of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, Personalized Education Program, or Family Empowerment Scholarship, all forms of state education assistance. As in the past, authorized purchases include paddle boards, televisions, and theme park admission for Florida parks such as Disney World, Sea World, Universal, and Legoland…
“Families can be reimbursed for home school supplies such as curricula, tables, chairs, and whiteboards as well as for televisions up to 55 inches, projectors and screens, picnic tables, fees for Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, woodworking supplies, in-home internet service, Nintendo Wii equipment, Legos, board games, ping pong tables, printer ink, and stuffed animals.”
Parents Can Still Pay Theme Park Passes Using State Scholarship Money – News From the States
These next two articles show the scam unfolding in Indiana. Universal vouchers are welfare for the wealthy.
“‘This expansion, extending vouchers to wealthier families, funnels public funds to those who can already afford private schools. This shift adds a financial burden on the state without reducing public school costs, undermining claims of state savings,’ Keith Gambill, president of the state’s largest teachers’ union, said in a statement. ‘Instead of helping wealthy families attend private schools at the expense of public school kids, we should be investing these tax dollars in our public schools.'”
The taxpayer cost for vouchers in Indiana has jumped from $15.5 million to more than $300 million. Supporters falsely claim vouchers save money because they are less than the average per pupil public school funding, but it’s actually a new expense of paying for students who never went to public school. The state is now subsidizing private school tuition for people who were already paying for it and blowing past cost estimates and negatively impacting state budgets. We have seen it in state after state, and we don’t want it here in Kansas.
Voucher Dilemma: Taxpayer cost jumped from $15.5 million to more than $300 million – Indy Star
Here is a look at some rampant abuse in Arizona:
“The state is drawing the line at paying for dune buggies. Kayaks, apparently, still are allowed as an acceptable educational expense under the state’s universal school voucher program, as are $900 Lego sets, trampoline sessions, Broadway tickets and espresso machines…
“Save Our Schools Arizona has been sounding the alarm about the state’s runaway ESA program all year, pointing to more than $100 million in non-educational spending approved without any academic justification. Curiously, those fiscal hawks over at the Legislature had no concerns.”
Dune buggy boondoggle shows a crying need for better school voucher oversight – AZ Central
Finally, we agree with this op-ed from Kentucky where they’re also facing a push for vouchers.
“Advocates of ‘school choice,’ or using public funds to pay for private school, often call it the civil rights issue of our time. That’s a special kind of gaslighting, not only because numerous studies have shown how little academic progress students make with school vouchers, but also because the school choice movement was actually born out of the horror that parents and politicians had toward the 1954 Brown v. Board decision that would end legal segregation in schools…
“All seemed lost when a series of studies showed voucher programs were actually hurting students. But then, amid the culture wars of the Trump administration, a, yes, vast right-wing conspiracy of conservative think tanks and ‘soldier scholars’ began to entwine school choice with ‘parental rights,’ leading to an explosion of states offering ‘universal vouchers,’ which diverts state funding to families regardless of family income. It’s uncanny, Cowen says, that in nearly every state, studies show that 70% of voucher dollars go to families that already send their children to private school.”
The fight over vouchers is an existential battle for America’s public schools – KC Star