Do vouchers reduce spending on public education?

US National Education Secretary Betsy de Vos makes no secret of her desire to fund private education with public funds, and the recent COVID budget and stimulus bills are providing this opportunity. While fighting this, opponents inevitably raise school vouchers and education tax credits and paint them with the same brush.


Public funding of private education is a valid dispute and cards on table, I do not agree with government money going to private schools and I am still conflicted about tax breaks for schools registered as non-profits or charities, as I am for churches and tennis clubs. (See here and here and sign up using the email alert box to the roght for more discussion on this matter.)

Treating private schools as businesses with access to loans, SBA, renewable energy credits, priority area investment and minority hiring incentives are all good and appropriate. Anything else is wrong. The customers of Joe's Cheese Shack do not receive a voucher for a free or heavily reduced comestible, and parishioners at St  Karen's are not given a stack of bills for the collection plate.

A voucher is essentially a government check where the bearer decides who receives it, so a school voucher is a government payment to a private entity. The evidence from voucher states in the US show that they rarely if ever cover the full fees of a private school, and low-income families typically cannot afford the balance. So while some middle-income families can now access a private school with the 30% / 50% / 80% discount, vouchers often go to those who were already paying fees and do not need the support.

Successful private schools with great facilities are attractive so they appeal to families with vouchers, but they were already successful private schools with great facilities so they didn't need the government money. On the other hand, small, non-viable, unsuccessful and specifically religious schools do need the government money because they were small, non-viable and unsuccessful.

Teh current proposal is take the $10 allocated to public education and to split it into $x for public schools and $y for vouchers. Without increasing the size of the pot, the amount going to public sachools will be reduced with each voucher.

A tax-credit is different in that tax-payers tell the government to direct x% of their taxes away from the general pot to a specific school. An individual family does have the cash, and most if not all programmes direct these funds to scholarships which are often needs-based.

Both vouchers and tax-credits are debatable and should be, however the claim that either program takes money away from public schools should be examined. Governments spend according to their priorities and if they do not support public education, they won't. A study from I think Arizona showed that in Year A, state education spending was $10 and in Year B, under significantly better economic conditions, education spending was also $10. The state government had not increased education funding despite better tax receipts,because it was not a priority for them. From memory, they gave a tax reduction! These reflect political choices, anf the coice was not to make a specific piece of bigger pie relatively bigger.

I think that what is really happening in some of the arguments against vouchers and credits is an anti-private education position. Such a view is fair; I support both forms of provision, but I think the need for each should be regularly examined. Some families will always want non-public education, such as for specific programmes or religious beliefs or family history. However many others elect a private option for specific reasons and this should be the point of interest.  Why, in each individual case, do parents prefer the non-public option? With that data, decisions such as whether to change a program can be made.

The issue of public funding of public education and the lack of funds available is a political matter, and the best way to improve public education funding is at the ballot-box.

(On a related note, public charter school funding probably does affect public district school funding by taking money from one part of the public education pot and puting it in another. Often this is the intent, although where it is deliberate, a legislature makes extra funds available to one over the other and thus increasing overall educational expenditure.)

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