Most Voucher Students Never Attended Public School. So What?

Here is one simple graphic from the folks at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, you can see the point that many folks have made over and over again-- taxpayer-funded school vouchers are going mostly to students who never actually left public school. But this leads to a big question--

So what?

This works fine for voucher advocates-- gives them a whole constituency that will fight hard to keep their free state subsidy. They will also argue that, of course, the vouchers are going to start out by supporting students who are already in private schools. So what?

How do you answer that question? Here's a couple of so what answers.

Vouchers are bait and switch.

Taxpayer-funded voucher programs are advertised as a way to rescue poor students from "failing public schools." Backers argue "Wouldn't you like some tax dollars to help rescue students in need?" which plays a whole lot better than "Wouldn't you like some tax dollars to help subsidize the tuition costs of private school students?" We know the answer to that second question-- the voters repeat that answer every time they are asked to vote for a taxpayer-funded voucher system and say, loudly, "No."

Imagine you gave money to Save The Children because of those pictures of sad poor kids and it turned out your money was buying ice cream for rich kids in the suburbs. That's taxpayer-funded school vouchers.

In fact, vouchers may actually make private schools less accessible. In Iowa, Princeton University researchers found that vouchers spurred a private school tuition increase. 

Vouchers increase state education costs.

"Let the money follow the child" is another standard voucher pitch. But when vouchers go to students already in private schools, that's not what happens. Instead, vouchers that go to students already in private schools adds on to the total cost for the state.

Say that in your state 100 students attend public school and 10 attend private school. The taxpayers are funding education for 100 students. The vouchers go in, and one kid leaves public school while 9 private school students sign up for vouchers. Now the taxpayers are funding education for 109 students. 

The effect is particularly striking in Iowa, where taxpayers now subsidize 99% of private school students. 

If the voters had decided they wanted to do this, that would be a choice. But nobody has pitched taxpayer-funded school vouchers as "Since we are paying for the education of students in public schools, we think taxpayers should also subsidize the tuition of students in public schools as well." 

Nor are vouchers simply giving private school parents their own tax dollars back to spend as they wish. Only the super-rich families contribute enough property tax dollars to fund their own children's vouchers (and not even those families if they have many children). Voucher funds require many taxpayers to chip in, not just the voucher-using families. 

Taxpayer-funded voucher programs end up being "budget busters." They represent an increase in education costs for the state that are neither discussed honestly ahead or time nor properly budgeted for. Every taxpayer-funded voucher that goes to a private or home-schooled student represents an increase in the total state cost for education. That money has to come from somewhere.

There are many reasons to oppose taxpayer-funded school vouchers, and lord knows I get into plenty of them elsewhere, but for purposes of responding to those folks who think it's no big deal that vouchers mostly go to students who were attending private school anyway, the above two points are the answer to "so what."