Utah: It's not a voucher bill--it's worse.

Its sponsor says it's not a voucher bill--it's a scholarship. What HB331 proposes is an education savings account, which is a voucher on steroids. There are a few significant differences between the two systems, but they are fundamentally the same thing.

With a voucher, the state gives you a "ticket" to the private school of your choice (if they will accept you). With an ESA, the state gives a pile of money to a "scholarship" organization which in turn gives you a pile of money to spend on whatever education stuff you wish, including, but not limited to, tuition at a private school.

The advantages for choice advocates are these:

1) It makes the free market even freer. With ESAs you don't have to operate an entire school to get a shot at collecting some of those sweet sweet public tax dollars.

2) The scholarship organization adds a level of protection in case someone wants to bring up that pesky wall between church and state. "We did not give public tax dollars to a religious school," the state can say. "We gave them to a scholarship organization." It's a defense familiar to every underage teen who had an older sibling buy beer for them

3) The term "voucher" doesn't have as much success or appeal as "scholarship." Utah voters hated Utah's 2007 voucher law so much that 62% of them voted to overturn it. No wonder none of the sponsors want to use the V word this time.

ESA laws have been popping up around the country, including extreme versions in Alabama and Oklahoma. Each have their own special features--let's see what Utah's bill HB 331 looks like.

Utah's ESAs are indexed to the poverty line--the further above it you are, the less you get. But at the high end (the greatest level of poverty), you get more than the state would have given to your public district. 1,000% of the federal poverty level is the cap.  

To fill out the application form, parents must acknowledge "that a private education service provider may not provide the same level of disability services that are provided in a public school." It also requires that parents acknowledge that taking a scholarship has the same effect as "a parental refusal to consent to servoices." Giving up the right to an IEP is not uncommon in choice programs. Proponents, like Alison Sorensen of Education Opportunity 4 Every Child, basically argue, "Well, yeah, but since you'll be able to pick a school that's a great fit, it won't matter." Thing is-- students with special needs are expensive to educate, and not a financial winner for education-flavored businesses like private schools. If I were one of the many parents of special needs children who have had to fight with public schools to protect my child's rights, I'd be leery to move to a school where I had zero legal recourse if I didn't like how things were playing out. 

Parents must also sign off on "I will assume full financial responsibility for the education of my scholarship recipient if I agree to this scholarship account" which is the closest I've seen to the quiet part out loud--in which the state says, "We cut you a check, and so we wash our hands of you. Good luck. You are no longer our responsibility." This is largely the point of vouchers and neo-vouchers--to get the government entirely out of education thereby ending public education as we know it. The bill also wants you to know that setting up this program in no way implies "that a public school did not provide a free and appropriate public education for a student," because if it did, somebody could get sued.

The bill includes the usual list of eligible expenses, but goes further than some in listing expenses that aren't eligible, like travel unrelated to education (never forget that $700K in Arizona ESA money spent on cosmetics and other sundries). 

The bill also goes further than some by listing some qualifications for vendors that want to get involved in the sales side of the program, as well as qualifications that private schools must meet, including an independent audit to determine their financial viability. Private schools enrolled in the program don't have to have fully certified teachers (a Bachelor's degree and "skills, knowledge or expertise" will do). Also, the school can't make the student sign a contract agreeing not to transfer out during the year. The private school has to resubmit an application if it changes owners.

And the bill calls for annual random independent audits, which is certainly more than several states do.

But it also includes what has become typical "hands off" language, indicating that the state cannot mess with "service providers" by extending its authority over them. The providers "may not be required to alter the qualifying service provider's creed, practices, admission policy, or curriculum in order to accept scholarship fund." So private religious schools can refuse students whose families aren't sufficiently "born again," expel students who come out as LGBTQ, and require whatever religious practices they want on the public dime. In Florida that has made a mess in many ways, but that's Florida. Maybe Utah will be different--religious issues have never been a big deal before there, right? 

Actually, since posting, I've learned on the Twitter that Utah already has a problem with some extremist groups using choice systems to fund their activities; this bill is going to give them even more taxpayer funding while insuring that the state won't interfere with their white supremacist ways. 

The program, called the "Hope Scholarship Program," gets $36 million in its first year ($2 to set things up), and can be grown after that.

As usual with these bills, some of the critical parts are the ones that aren't there. While this bill goes  marginally further than others, it is still lacking any sorts of protections for parents and students in the program. What happens if you run out of ESA money? They signed off on this to get into the program--it's all their problem. And they do have an out, because unlike some ESA/voucher bills, this bill has no requirements for what minimal amount of education the parents are required to provide--which is not great for students. If parents get hoodwinked by a grifter, or left in the lurch by a vendor that shuts down mid-year? Well, in all these cases students can return to public school (though the money that's supposed to follow them everywhere will not follow them back to public school). 

Look, it's a voucher bill, only instead of just signing students up for a private school, it also contains the possibility of paying off various other "providers" of education-flavored products. As a voucher, it drains money from public schools. 

Also--and this isn't discussed nearly often enough--like every other voucher/ESA bill, it completely disenfranchises taxpaying non-parents. Don't have a kid? Then you have no voice in this marketplace. If you think your tax dollars should not be going to support America First High School or Critical Race Theory Central, there is no elected school board for you to go yell at. 

But make no mistake. This is a voucher bill, only worse because it has even less focus and accountability than a straight voucher bill would have. If you're in Utah, call your elected representative and say no.