School Vouchers

Abstract

Many people see private school vouchers as a solution to the problem of underperforming schools in the United States. Allowing those who are unhappy with their public school the opportunity to enroll in a more favorable private school is often cited as a way for students to reach academic expectations, for public schools to benefit from competition, and for an equal education to be had by all. Controversy about their legality abounds, and the reality is that there is no uniform voucher system in the country, nor is there any one state with a model program for others to follow.

Overview

Vouchers are tuition coupons parents can redeem to send their child to the public or private school of their choice. By giving the choice to parents, all children can attend the school that may best serve their needs. The voucher concept has been discussed since the late twentieth century, but as of early 2023, only thirteen US states and Washington DC provided state-funded vouchers to qualified students ("School voucher laws," 2023). Controversy about their legality abounds, and the reality is that there is no uniform voucher system in the country, nor is there any one state with a model program for others to follow.

At first glance, the rationale behind school vouchers seems simple enough. Under this system, the government permits parents to send their children to any school—public or private—and provides grants in the form of coupons to make this possible. The establishment of a voucher system attempts to free public schools from holding a monopoly on education by allowing parents who do not like a particular school to send their children elsewhere (Jencks, 1972). According to proponents, the voucher system could ultimately improve all schools and encourage innovation and high standards of excellence.

Those in agreement with the voucher system claim these grants could effectively overhaul the education system by generating competition for US public schools. Ideally, disadvantaged students would benefit from getting out of some of the worst schools in the country and would enjoy higher academic achievement and enhanced social opportunities. Naysayers argue that public schools do not need the competition—they are already doing a fine job and need all the financial support they can get. By handing students vouchers to leave public schools, they say, both resources and children would flow out (Moe, 2001).

History. Parents with the financial means already have the right of school choice based on where they live or by choosing a private school (Garnett & Pearsall, 2005). Vouchers are a way to help those parents and children for whom school choice is desired but is not a financial option.

Milton Friedman. In the 1950s, noted economist Milton Friedman argued in favor of the idea of education vouchers. He reasoned that public schools were a government-run monopoly and regardless of performance, they were provided with students and resources. This system gave schools little incentive to improve or innovate, and Friedman claimed that this was a reason the education system was stagnant and mediocre. He suggested a voucher system would allow the government to provide subsidies but not operate as a supplier to a monopoly (cited in Moe, 2001).

Friedman believed that vouchers enabling any student to go to private schools, if they so choose, would help improve education for all. However, he acknowledged that these types of programs could still segregate students by race and income, so his innovative education ideas did not get much support. Although his original views about school choice were published in the 1950s, Friedman restated them forty years later when he said that the solution to the education system's problems is to privatize it (cited in Weil, 2002).

Christopher Jencks. In the 1970s, Harvard academic Christopher Jencks suggested a regulated voucher system, where all children in a particular area would qualify for vouchers of a certain value, but children of low-income families would be entitled to larger vouchers. Jencks further proposed that private schools be required to accept the voucher as full tuition payment. Students with vouchers of a higher value would be more attractive to private schools, which would probably conclude that even if remediation were needed for those lower-performing voucher students, the schools would still find themselves ahead (Moe, 2001).

Jencks's ideas were shot down by teachers' unions and other education groups. Just one pilot program, in Alum Rock, California, was started in the 1970s, bearing only a vague resemblance to Jencks's original idea. The program ended after three years.

The Politics of Vouchers. By the end of the 1970s, there was still no serious talk of or support for vouchers as a way to improve the country's education system. At that time, reliance on the private sector and markets to improve schools was thought of as a positive idea, but until Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, there was little support or even serious talk of school vouchers. Reagan spoke of choice and competition as important ways of improving the education system, and he actively lobbied for school vouchers. President Reagan's proposed legislation was not supported by Congress, but in 1983, A Nation at Risk was published. This report about the country's education system issued the warning that US schools were in crisis and immediate reforms were necessary to attempt to improve their performance. Since this study was published, presidents and governors have attempted to be dubbed the "education president" or the "education governor" as a way to affirm their commitment to improving the education system (Moe, 2001).

In the beginning of the 1990s, Republican President George H. W. Bush proposed $1,000 vouchers for children whose families' income was below the national average. Although the legislation did not pass the Democratic Congress, it did gain the attention of the media and the public. Since teachers' unions helped elect Bill Clinton president in 1992, he was compelled to oppose the voucher system, but in the 1996 election campaign, Republican Bob Dole proposed vouchers for low-income families. The issue became polarized, with George W. Bush favoring vouchers for those in underperforming schools in the 2000 campaign, and Democrat Al Gore opposing vouchers of any kind (Moe, 2001).

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, President George W. Bush attempted to create a voucher program for affected students in Louisiana to enroll in the school of their choice. This effort was defeated by Congress, with some dissenters saying Bush's idea was more political opportunism at a time of tragedy than a way for students to get the best education possible ("After Katrina," 2005).

Since 2005, there has been little talk of vouchers on a national level. In those states that do have some type of voucher system in place, the types of school choice plans and public opinion can vary greatly. In a study conducted by a national research firm, it was found that when asked about their feelings for school vouchers, 11 percent of the respondents thought school vouchers were a good idea and would ultimately solve the country's education deficiencies; 67 percent of respondents thought vouchers were a good idea but wouldn't solve the nation's education problems, and 17 percent of the respondents said vouchers were not a good idea and would make our country's education problems worse (Weil, 2002). A similar study in 2021 found that about 45 percent of Americans supported voucher programs, at least for low-income families (Shah, 2022).

Further Insights

Voucher Programs in The 2020s. As of 2023, voucher programs could be found in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia (Kennedy, 2023). This list does not include the states or districts which utilized voucher programs during the COVID-19 pandemic to allow parents to send their children to in-person classes. School voucher programs in Cleveland, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Washington, DC, all target low-income students in underperforming schools. Milwaukee's city-wide voucher program is intended for the very poor. Opponents argue that those served by this system are typically not those who pay taxes, and the middle- and upper-middle-class taxpayers are subsidizing the education for the poor. As with all voucher systems, parents are being taxed twice whether they use it or not: first, when they are funding public education for all and again, when they are paying for vouchers to move children from public to private schools. The voucher program is not open to everyone in Milwaukee who may qualify—no more than 15 percent of a school district's students are eligible to receive the voucher to attend a private school.

There is a smorgasbord of variations on the school voucher program in other areas of the country. For example, a statewide voucher program in Ohio is open to those students enrolled in failing schools. Arizona has a voucher program specifically for children in foster care, and both Maine and Vermont offer vouchers for those students in rural towns without their own public schools. In 1999, both Maine and Vermont courts ruled that religious schools could not participate in the states' voucher programs (Larson, 2002). Utah's voucher program provides funding to every public school student who wishes to attend a private school. Georgia offered a voucher program for special education students for the first time in 2007, and Florida's McKay Scholarship program provides vouchers for students with disabilities ("School voucher laws," 2023).

The Florida Opportunity Scholarship Program. The country's first statewide voucher program was started in Florida in 1999 in response to a high school on-time graduation rate of less than 60 percent. Dubbed the Florida Opportunity Scholarship Program, the voucher program was not limited to low-income families and permitted students in failing public schools (those schools receiving a letter grade of "F," based on student performance, for two years in any four-year period) throughout Florida to attend a private or high-performing school. As it was originally written, the statute would have used tax money to pay tuition for private schools to those students requesting it (Davis, 2006).

The original program was successfully overturned in Florida courts with the argument that it diverted tax dollars into private systems in competition with public schools. The courts said that public schools are in the business of educating Florida's children and state funds should not be undermining this goal. In addition, private schools should not be considered on a par with public schools, since they often don't require teachers to be certified, while public schools have stringent systems of regulation designed to keep standards high. It was also noted that the curriculum in Florida public schools is set by the state's board of education, while often private schools use a curriculum adopted by some other nonpublic school curriculum development area (Davis, 2006). The Florida Opportunity Scholarship Program is still in operation, with students attending failing public schools given the option to attend another public school of their choosing ("Opportunity Scholarship Program," n.d.).

Viewpoints

Proponents of Vouchers. Generally, those in favor of school vouchers tend to argue that education must be available to all children regardless of their race, their culture, their first language, or their particular special needs. Social mobility is not guaranteed for the less privileged in this country and the voucher system is one way to close this gap. Proponents say that often public schools are not able to provide an education to all students. One point often mentioned is that public school teachers in some areas enroll their own children in private schools—seeming to admit that their public schools are not good enough for them. Those in favor of vouchers often say that all parents who desire it should be able to send their children to private schools if they believe they are superior to the public schools in their area (Weil, 2002).

African American children often endure low-quality public schools, and their parents tend to embrace the idea of school vouchers. Many parents have attempted to improve the schools in their neighborhoods but have been frustrated by seemingly unresponsive administrators. The prevailing wisdom tends to be that the public schools need to be improved, but each child needs to be educated (Malveaux, 2003). Private, independent schools are often seen as a solution because they are more effective than public schools. They have a clear sense of their mission and are not constrained by politics and bureaucracy (Gill, 2007). Without a system like vouchers, proponents believe, school reform will likely never come to bright but low-income students enrolled in failing schools. Vouchers and private schools could pave the way for success for these students (Magnusson, 2003).

The US education system for K-12 in 2021 cost taxpayers over $666.9 billion (Hanson, 2022). Aside from educating students, the system provides teachers, administrators, and a host of others with employment. Most proponents of the voucher system agree that the education system would not be harmed by the program. Although public schools would lose some students and resources to private schools, this would provide public schools needed incentive to compete and therefore improve (Moe, 2001). With vouchers, private schools would be in a position to compete with public schools, as they would get the same amount of public money per pupil as the public schools. It can be argued that the quality of public school education would be improved by removing it from its present status as a near-monopoly of the education system and subjecting it to the competition of the free market (Havighurst, 1972).

Opponents of Vouchers. Those against the voucher system say that vouchers threaten our country's public education system. Vouchers permit and even encourage students and resources to go to the private sector, and as students and funding leave the public schools, this ultimately means lost jobs, less money to spend on programs, and a smaller public school system. The teachers unions would suffer, too, as the decline in teachers would mean less dues and less power to be influential in education decisions and legislation (Moe, 2001).

The drain of children and resources to the private sector could make it more difficult for public school performance to improve, especially in poorer areas. As the most motivated and more socially advantaged students and parents leave these underperforming schools for what they perceive to be a better opportunity, they would also take their demands for school improvements with them, leaving others—usually the less aggressive parents—to push for change and to participate in school affairs (Moe, 2001).

Some opponents allege that parents are too ignorant to make intelligent choices among schools for their children (Jencks, 1972). Indeed, not all parents may consider moving their children from their present public school for quality educational reasons. Instead, some may decide to have their children leave their public school because the students' peers have chosen to leave, or because of the private school's proximity to their home. Some children may not have transportation to private schools, so refrain from considering them, and racial problems that already exist in public schools would likely get worse (Moe, 2001).

There are many other subsets of students for whom vouchers just won't work. These include students who may want a voucher but, for a variety of reasons, are unable to get one; those students who are happy with their present public school and do not want to leave, but can detect its weakening by the diverted funds and students; students who experience specific program cutbacks because needed funds have gone to vouchers; and students for whom private schools are not convenient or even available or otherwise don't meet their needs (Weil, 2002).

Are Private Schools Really Superior? Opponents also mention that private schools can be inferior in their own way. Since they are usually not covered by achievement assessment testing laws and lack standards and accountability, private schools may not be seeing the same types of results public schools are expected to. Since private schools are not compelled to take all students who apply for admission, they may exercise selective admission and choose to only accept students of a certain academic level (Weil, 2002). Even with the possible influx of students, a study of private schools found they would not plan to grow under vouchers and would likely continue to limit the number of students they chose to admit (Shires, 1994). Private schools often are not able to adequately educate those students who are enrolled in special education programs or those for which English is a second language (Jacobsen, 2004). Even typically-abled students can be closed out of private schools: Most of these schools do not have free lunch programs, for example, and many do not have adequate busing systems (Weil, 2002). The reality is that many students end up being left behind in public schools which have less funding because of the decrease in students (Jacobsen, 2004).

It should be noted that most private schools are affiliated with a church or a particular religion; in fact, nationwide over three-quarters of the private schools in operation are religious schools, and about 85 percent of students enrolled in a private school are attending this type of private school (Weil, 2002). Many opponents of the voucher system believe using vouchers to fund a religious-affiliated private school violates the separation of church and state. They say that religion should be kept out of education that is paid for by the taxpayer (Moe, 2001).

Conclusion

There is no consensus as to whether vouchers are a viable way to improve education in the United States. Although they may offer a solution to some students' dissatisfaction with the public school they are zoned to attend, studies conducted thus far indicate the system ultimately does not improve academic results.

Research has shown that there is not a direct correlation between student academic achievement and vouchers for academic choice. A study of the Cleveland voucher program found that participating students did not show higher test-score gains than students who did not use vouchers. The voucher students were found to perform slightly worse in math achievement (Robelen, 2006). A study of the Washington, DC, program made public in June 2007 concluded that there were no significant academic differences between students who attended public schools and those who used a voucher to attend a private school (Collins, 2007). Confirming the results of this study ten years later, Martin Carnoy, an education professor at Stanford, analyzed twenty-five years of studies on school vouchers and found that they failed to positively impact test scores (Spector, 2017). Similarly, the Parents Campaign Research and Education Fund published a compilation of state specific research in 2020, which echoed these same findings (Taylor, 2022).

Despite the lack of correlation between student performance and private schools, there are other reasons private schools may not be the answer. Unlike public schools, private ones operate as a business. As such, they can relocate and even abandon their students as they see fit. Public schools must be available and accessible to all students all the time and do not operate for a profit but for a human bottom line, the benefit of students. They cannot relocate. The improvement therefore needs to come from within their walls.

Terms & Concepts

A Nation at Risk: A 1983 report published by the US Department of Education's National Committee on Excellence in Education. The report is generally cited as the originator of education reform efforts in the United States.

Certified Teacher: A certified teacher is one who has completed an approved teacher education program.

Curriculum: Curriculum is the courses of study offered by a particular school or educational institution.

Low Income: Low income generally means a household income below a particular percentage of the federal poverty level.

Polarized: Polarized means to divide among sharply opposing sides, such as political parties.

Selective Admission: Selective admission means that a potential student must meet certain criteria, usually academic, to be considered for admission to a particular school.

Teachers' Union: A teachers' union is an organization of teachers and other educators who work together to promote quality education, good working and learning conditions, and fair labor practices for all members.

Underperforming School: An underperforming school is that does not meet the educational expectations on state and national assessments in core subjects areas as outlined by the local, state, or national guidelines.

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Suggested Reading

Filer, R. K., & Munich, D. (2013). Responses of private and public schools to voucher funding. Economics of Education Review, 34, 269–285. Retrieved December 13, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=87504206

Howell, W. (2006). The education gap: Vouchers and urban schools. Brookings Institution Press.

Kahlenberg, R. (Ed.). (2003). Public school choice vs. private school vouchers. Century Foundation Press.

National Council on Excellence in Education. (1983). A nation at risk. USA Research.

Prothero, A. (2017). In Florida, laissez-faire approach to monitoring private school vouchers. Education Week, 37(13), 1–13. Retrieved January 4, 2018, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=126446967&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Van Dunk, E., & Dickman, A. (2008). School choice and the question of accountability: The Milwaukee experience. Yale University Press.

Zirkel, P. A. (2012). Is vouchering the way to vouch for special education? Journal of Law & Education, 41, 649–650. Retrieved December 13, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=80415580