On January 17, the world was left stunned in the aftermath of the Senate confirmation hearing of Betsy DeVos, the Trump cabinet pick for Secretary of Education. Little-known to anyone outside of political circles prior to her hearing, DeVos made an immediate impression by announcing her intention to roll out a national school voucher fund to allow for school choice. Her remarks, which can only be described as radical, have begun an intense national debate about the best way to advance public education in America.
The school voucher system, envisioned in its current form by Milton Friedman and intended for use in urban communities, was devised with the intent of creating competition for failing neighborhood schools and eventually resulting in lowered costs, better staff hirings, and an overall increase in quality of education. In essence, the voucher system reimburses parents with the public funds that would have been allocated to their child in the public school system. States allocate an average of $15,000 per student, which is redirected from public schools to parents so that they can afford to send their children to a school of their choice under the voucher system. Parents can use this rebate to cover the cost of open-enrollment at different school districts, to cover private school tuitions, or, in some states, even to pay for religiously affiliated schools.
As many urban communities have found out the hard way, the application of free-market economic theory to public education has yielded unprecedented consequences. The first shortcoming of school vouchers is that they simply don’t work to improve public schools. Most students who take advantage of voucher programs to attend private schools are an elite minority, and taking money out of public schools, typically ones that are already failing, only reduces their chances at survival. Increases in student to teacher ratios, worsening teacher shortages, and inabilities to acquire technology have all been plaguing public schools for years, and pretending that diverting already-scarce funds to small institutions is a long-term solution is simply false. While in theory, competition could work to lower costs and increase quality at public schools, it is clear that the current approach is at best putting off the problem of insufficient funding to public schools, and at worst severely crippling the ability of many urban school districts to educate their current generation of students.
The second problem with the use of school vouchers is that while in theory, they level the playing field for children in disadvantaged districts, they actually are oriented only to help the wealthy. Not only do school vouchers take away from needy public schools, but they rarely cover the price of high-quality private schools for poorer families. Many states can only provide voucher amounts subsidizing $1,000 or less of a private school tuition: clearly not a large enough portion of the cost to make vouchers a viable alternative to failing public schools. As a result, voucher systems today are often used by the wealthy for a tax break or tuition discount for schools that they could otherwise still afford, while poorer families are stuck in public schools with dwindling budgets.
A striking example of the voucher system’s adverse effects on public education has been in the Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD). DPSCD has been in extensive financial troubles since 1994, when Michigan decided to approve a massive charter and private school campaign, in no small part due to the lobbying efforts of a then-unknown millionaire named Betsy DeVos. Now, the situation is dire. In September 2016, a group of high-school students went as far as to sue Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and education officials, claiming that the state was depriving them of a constitutional right to literacy that they interpreted the 14th Amendment to uphold. The state’s response was even more unexpected—it claimed that there was “no fundamental right to literacy” instead of seeking to rectify the situation. The fact that students are going to such extremes not only shows the negative impact of vouchers on public schools, but is also a testament to the inability of the voucher system to provide high-quality alternatives for lower-income students.
Even more alarming is the impact the rollout of a national school voucher program could have on rural and small-town districts such as ICSD. Districts around the country are already feeling the impact of a loss of population and its accompanying loss of funding. Given the popularity of alternative education in Ithaca, a voucher program could significantly decrease IHS’s student population. Cutting AP courses, electives and extracurriculars, and staff have been some of the ways of counteracting the drastic losses in funding that come with decreased enrollment, and these would be acutely felt at IHS. For reference, a loss of even 20 students at IHS under current conditions would result in a loss of $400,000 in funding from the state.
It is clear that rolling out a national school voucher program would be detrimental to public education nationwide, and especially in rural communities. The solution to fixing underfunded public schools is not to further siphon off their funding or to write them off altogether; private schools and charter schools are all short-term solutions. We must at once address a much-needed national conversation about what is necessary to provide high-quality, free education for all.