Erika Garnica
Econ 401
Project Assignment
D.C.School Vouchers
D.C. vouchers give parents an amount of money to buy tuition from private schools they otherwise couldn’t afford to send their children to. The DC School Choice Incentive Act of 2003 established The Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) which is also referred to as the D.C. voucher program provided a school choice for the children of low-income families in the form of scholarships to pay for private schooling.[1]The D.C. vouchers have been successful in helping academically gifted students a chance to leave the District’s “struggling” school system and obtain a private education.[2] The Senate rejected an amendment that would have continued sending taxpayer money to the District of Columbia on March 10, 2009. “Congress deserves an A plus for this decision,” said People for The American Way president Kathryn Kolbert. “ School vouchers have always been about ideology, not education.”[3]Parents are disappointed because a pro of this policy is that their children are able to attend a private school that would provide their children a better education than in the D.C. school system. The policy was rejected after a strong debate of the teachers unions, congress, the Republican and Democratic parties, and the taxpayers. Supporters and opponents of the policy had different perspectives on costs and benefits of the policy. President Obama has received much backlash from critics after ending the program.The $7500 vouchers were awarded by lottery, with preferences given to students attending public schools designated as “in need of improvement”, under the No Child Left Behind education initiative. However, with the change of power in congress the policy lost its strong Republican support.
Even though the policy ended there are still supporters who want to the D.C. voucher program put in place again. Since President Obama ended the voucher program there were restrictions imposed thatthose who are already in the program could participate until graduation but the program is not accepting new students. Supporters such as Carmen Holassie say the voucher program can make significant differences. She says, “OSP has made a very important impact on [Her son’s] life based on he knows where he wants to go in life and he can foresee his future ahead of him in a positive way.” Another advocate parent says that her son had “issues when he was in public school and that school officials didn’t respond to her requests for help.[4] However proponents, organized teachers unions say that the program leads to greater inefficiency. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, a strong opponent to the D.C. voucher program says, “It’s true that we have a problem with the voucher program. But our beef is with the well-funded foundations that pressured the president to use public money for private vouchers. These foundations easily could have helped the children already participating in this program. Instead they used these children, who are blameless as pawns in an ideological battle.”[5]
Equity concerns are that the students receiving the vouchers have are receiving preferential treatment since it is only going to a group that is the students that are academically gifted, low income, and usually minority. Another equity concern is that DC public schools will be receiving fewer funds, meaning students there wouldn’t have many resources. Equity concerns for the parents and people who are advocates of the program is that the lower income minority children aren’t receiving a school choice in contrast to their higher income counterparts. Since richer parents can afford to send their kids to any school of their choice whereas a single parent or family with a lower income could only have one option which is the local public school. Providing access to the private school would also increase diversity in schools maximizing equity.
Efficiency concerns about the program are that taxpayers would be paying twice; for a segmented group of students that are participating in a program they might not support. However that is also the same for parents who send their kids to private school and pay taxes for public schools. Competition among private and public schools would also increase which could lead to greater efficiency since competition from private schools could cause the DC public schools to increase it’s quality. However, proponents, mainly teachers unions, say that it would make bad schools worse since they would have fewer funds, resources, and would cause job cuts. Some also feel that since public schools have more regulation then they would have more control and be able to oversee how well they are performing in contrast to private schools which could lead to less inefficiency since they wouldn’t have as much oversight to see how well they perform.
The D.C. vouchers, funded by taxpayers money, is given to the parents and they are given a choice of which school their child attends. This gives the parents decisions on how taxpayer money is spent. Findings and research have found evidence that there are achievement differences between public and private schools. The studies say that there are higher rates of graduation, college attendance, and college graduation for Catholic high school students and happier parents. Competition among private and public schools might also increase the quality of the public schools and lead to greater efficiency and more successful students. Another pro is that educational choice leads to greater social economic and racial segregation of students since the students are mostly minority and from lower-income families.[6]The costsare eventually higher taxes, public schools and teachers would face job cuts and lower salaries and budget cuts, violate church-state separation, (an infringement on liberty since the vouchers go to mainly catholic schools) will be costly to administer and monitor the process of the vouchers and use of them. Since it maximizes social welfare and satisfies efficiency concerns, that school choice is increased for students, then the benefits exceed costs.
However, even though the benefits exceed the costs, since the students quality of education and efficiency increases relative to cost, decisions in the public sector are made more on concerns about politics. Student achievement is considered a goal of schools. School reform is essential for student achievement. This was the reason the DC voucher program ended after much debate from opponents and supporters. Special interest groups, the organized teachers unions that strongly opposed the program, were against the policy because it would mean less jobs, lower salaries, and less resources. Pressure from the unions and the loss of support with the new administration led to the elimination of the policy.
A second best policy alternative for the D.C. voucher program could be that there be more regulation imposed on the private schools so they are required to release data in this way to track their performance so we are certain that the program is helping students. Also more control or monitoring imposed so that the vouchers are only given to those who are truly lower income and deserving of the award. It would also help if they increase the number of private schools in the program and that aren’t necessarily catholic schools so there isn’t any infringement on liberty and they would have increased school choice. In this way if less funds are provided for the program the teachers unions would be more satisfied if less funds are taken away from the public schools and they could still have more resources and less job loss. In this way a benevolent policymaker would be able to maximize social welfare.
Another pro is that the vouchers create more choice and more equality, more fairness, because it is giving low income students more choice on where they can attend school which their wealthier counter parts have an advantage of. However, there are also equity concerns, unfairness, for public schools that wouldn’t be receiving as much focus. Instead of improving the D.C. public school system more taxpayer money would be going to the vouchers. It also creates unfairness for those taxpayers that don’t support the vouchers, including those that could be higher income and already sending their kids to private schools. Efficiency is attainable since in the long run society could have successful students since competition between schools increase and that would lead to better results in schools or higher quality of education. Supporters, which are the parents, say that a pro of the D.C. voucher program would be that it gives high achieving students in D.C. to leave the District’s struggling school system for private academies they otherwise couldn’t afford. Advocates for the act also say that the teachers unions, who don’t support the act, aren’t sufficiently committed to closing the achievement gap between middle-class “white kids” and “low-income children of color”.[7]
A third year report named the Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program that evaluated the program found that there was statistically no real difference in test scores between students who were offered an OSP scholarship and students who were not offered a scholarship. It was also found that the program had a positive impact on parent’s satisfaction and how they perceived school safety but no effect on the children. In contrast, the students who were offered OSP scholarships did not report being more satisfied or feeling safer in school. The same pattern of findings was found on students who used the scholarship.A con is that if there is no difference to test scores and unchanged satisfaction of students that are on the program and those who aren’t then it isn’t putting taxpayers dollars to good use since the main goal is for the kids to have the best education they can receive. It isn’t efficient in this sense since it isn’t maximizing social welfare and the costs exceed the benefits.
However, parents are satisfied and feel their children are safer so this is the pro in this sense. Critics say that the vouchers aren’t the answer and more money should be put in public schools. A pro with the elimination of the voucher program would be that more resources and more money would be available for public schools. Another pro of the elimination of school vouchers is that since these vouchers were sometimes risky and being given to students not considered low-income since the proponents of the program have said the program wasn’t administered or monitored accurately.
Other states that have used school voucher programs have proved to have increased efficiency and more social welfare. An example is the Milwaukee Voucher Program which is the oldest voucher program in the U.S. Established in 1990 by 1998 the program was expanded and allowed up to 15,000 children to attend any religious or other private school. School Choice Wisconsin, a Milwaukee advocate group of the policy says that students in the program are outperforming their peers in the public school system. He says, “The study showed MCPC had significant gains compared to Milwaukee Public Schools students in the 7th and 8th grade math…The study found that the MPCP has produced academic gains for MPS students meaning that the MPCP has raised the achievement bar across the board. The program is adding measurable academic value to choosers and non-choosers…if the trends continue the gains will become larger and statistically significant across the board.”[8]There has also been another study done that assessed high school graduation rates in Milwaukee. They found that Milwaukee students using vouchers to attend private schools graduated at a higher rate than students in public schools and have higher graduations rates because of school choice. Milwaukee students who attended private high schools have a graduation rate of 64% in contrast the same year the study was conducted over 30 high schools had a combined graduation rate of 36%. [9]Since the D.C. voucher program lasted less than the Milwaukee program that has been running for years then in the long run benefits would outweigh costs and efficiency would increase over time.
The Milwaukee program had its pros and cons as well. Its cons are that the voucher schools aren’t required to hire college graduates or certified teachers leading to an equity concern that the students aren’t receiving adequate education as they would in a school compared to other private paid schools. They’re also not required to disclose data. In this way there is less control of the schools and it is an efficiency concern. Studies conducted by the NEW (National Education Association) during the first 4 yrs found no significant difference in achievement for students receiving vouchers and public school students.
In conclusion, the debate of school vouchers stem from race, equity, competition, and choice and if efficiency is attainable through these vouchers. Opponents of the vouchers say that it is too costly to administer and monitor, that it violates church state separation or infringement on liberty since most of the participating schools are catholic. They also say another con is that less resources and less focus would be provided to D.C. public schools. Teachers unions are afraid it would create job cuts and lower salaries and fewer resources for the schools. Pros are that it would increase equity in the school system since lower income minority students would be given more school choice and receive a better quality education than they would be able to in a D.C. public school. A pro is also that it could create competition among schools so this could lead to more efficiency and a better D.C. school system. Another con is that it would be expensive to reconstruct the current system and because the vouchers would also be costly. This would lead to the opponent’s con of higher educations costs meaning higher taxes for society. Advocates for the school vouchers counter that vouchers would actually help control costs since they would come out of existing school budget. Even though it would maximize efficiency and social welfare by increasing the chances of success, opportunity and higher graduation rates to lower income minorities ,such as Hispanics and Blacks, a policy maker wouldn’t always make the choice with the most efficiency because political realities such as pressure from special interest groups, in this case the teachers unions, say the funding for public schools would be cut and fear of job cuts and lower resources for public schools ended the program.
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[2]Goldstein, Dana “The Education Wars”. American Prospect. 20 (2009): 18
[3]American Teacher. “D.C. Vouchers: What’s “opportunity” got to do with it?”. News & Trends. April 2005.
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[6] Levin M. Henry. “Educational Vouchers”. Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. 1998.
[7]Courtney, Drew “Senate Rejects Extension of DC Voucher plan”. Wire Feed. March 10, 2009
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