Parents in 33 states are getting government funding to pay for private school -- and sometimes homeschooling, FutureEd reports. In twelve states, all students, regardless of family income are eligible, write Liz Cohen and Bella DiMarco.
At least initially, universal choice programs primarily serve children already enrolled in private schools, rather than students switching from public to private schools, their research finds.
It's possible that will change over time, they write. In 2022-23, the first year of universal eligibility for Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) in Arizona, "21 percent of ESA recipients in grades 1-12, or 6,157 students, previously attended public school; a year later, the figure increased to 48 percent, or 9,250 students."
Choice advocates say more private schools will be created now that more parents can afford tuition, write Cohen and DiMarco. However, "the $7,000 to $8,000 that states typically provide students annually under the new universal programs isn’t likely to be enough to support the launching of new schools in many parts of the country."
In the Phoenix area, few working-class parents have applied for ESA funding, according to a ProPublica analysis, write Eli Hager and Lucas Waldron. "The poorer the ZIP code, the less often vouchers are being used. The richer, the more."
In interviews, some parents said they didn't know about the program or didn't have the ability to research their options. Others said they were deterred by the logistics. Not surprisingly, high-quality private schools tend to be in affluent neighborhoods -- and rarely offer busing.
Angelica Zavala found a Catholic school within three miles of her home, but decided to stick with her neighborhood schools. She worried about getting her daughters to St. Matthew's, which doesn't offer busing, and feared the voucher wouldn't cover the full tuition.
Private schools often raise their tuition when parents have ESA funding, notes the Hechinger Report.
A Brookings study also finds that middle- and upper-income parents are the biggest users of Arizona's universal program.
Arizona’s version of vouchers “is not well-designed to achieve the goal of providing more choice for low-income and working-class families,” Fordham's Michael Petrilli told ProPublica. He supports larger vouchers for needier students.
Dr Matthew Ladner (a friend of mine) has written about an effect of Arizona's legislation not accounted for here: in Scottsdale, possibly the wealthiest city in Arizona, the local school district has seen a drop in enrolment from its affluent citizenry, so it is now accepting inter-district transfers from poorer districts around Phoenix, which were unavailable before: these students are still classified as attending public schools, but have better opportunities available to them than before because of the use of vouchers by the wealthier families who have moved on to still better opportunities for their children.
It's the culture.
Liz Cohen and Bella DiMarco: "the $7,000 to $8,000 that states typically provide students annually under the new universal programs isn’t likely to be enough to support the launching of new schools in many parts of the country."
US DOE NCES Digest of Education Statistics
Table 235.20, 2020-2021Total US K-12 public school revenue: $837,337,948,000
Table 203.45, US K-12 public school 2020 fall enrollment: 49,374,751
=> 2020-2021 revenue per pupil = $16,958.82
Arizona K-12 public school revenue = 12,939,677.000
Arizona K-12 enrollment: 1111500
Arizona revenue per pupil: $11,641.63
Joanne: "Private schools often raise their tuition when parents have ESA funding, notes the Hechinger Report."
This is a defect of voucher legislation. Private schools have no incentive to charge less than the…
School choice programs seem to be backdoor version of higher standards with higher failure rates. The private and charter schools can dump their worse students. The children with the most engaged parents benefit. And the bad students are dumped to the must accept bad public schools.
Wouldn't an easier system to just have high standards in all schools and tolerate a high failure rate rather than doing the same thing with a backdoor program.