The first book you read from a series often determines whether or not you end up buying a sequel.  You can make a relatively reliable prediction about another book in the series by looking at a prior book.  Likewise, we can make some predictions about school choice efforts in Tennessee by looking at other Southern states whose book we can review first.  North Carolina offers a reasonable example for this school choice book review for several reasons.  As a southern state with a mix of rural and urban counties, it has about a 10-year history with school choice.  Like others including the current path in Tennessee, it started with a smaller program advancing until the decision to go universal and bigger is now underway.  It had its court battles to shape its final product as others challenged different aspects of its design.  Like Tennessee, their design includes a voucher or scholarship form in which the state writes a check to the chosen private school on behalf of the student. All together, this resembles Tennessee’s current and future proposed approach sufficiently for a comparative review to determine if we want to shelve current Tennessee universal school choice proposals.

                Tennessee does not have to be an exact replica of North Carolina to use the latter for comparison as patterns will arise with similar setting and program design.  With some awareness of what Tennessee could get itself into, we can try to avoid similar problems or choose to forgo school choice all together.  At the very least, we can make some informed decisions rather than just on altruistic propaganda and idealism.  We cannot just trust the false advertising that the Tennessee book in the school choice series will be amazingly better than the North Carolina book or any other state we could look at.

                While just reading a book does not require any organization other than reading from end to end, making a comparison of North Carolina’s school choice story requires a little more planning.  First, we should consider if North Carolina in general resembles Tennessee.  Second, we should consider the problems we see in North Carolina surrounding school choice. These include who is driving or funding the movement, instances of fraud, the actual cost of the program, regulations imposed on private schools, and the actual outcomes of the program.  Third, for those of us who homeschool in Tennessee, we should consider direct or indirect effects on homeschool freedoms already enjoyed and potential changes given the opinions and patterns of legislators.  With that in mind, we can better determine if we want this change to come to Tennessee as our Governor proposes.

                Beginning with the general characteristics of North Carolina and its school choice program, we can see many similarities.  As previously noted, both Tennessee and North Carolina are Southern states with a mix of urban and rural counties, each of which experience school choice effects differently.  Beyond that their legislature is strongly Republican controlled such that they can shape the school choice policies to their liking and the Democrats are not to blame for school choice in general.  Having started small in 2013 (State Policy Network 2022) North Carolina’s program initially only included low-income families, but as of September of 2023, became a universal school choice state.  Based on the website for North Carolina Home Educators Association, homeschoolers there are advised to not accept state funding through this program due to potential for increased governmental control of homeschooling.  Homeschoolers already have to administer yearly tests and comply with other rules (we don’t have these requirements yet in Tennessee).  Homeschoolers in that state do not want more strings than they already have. At least in Tennessee, this is an important difference which homeschoolers should seek to maintain.

                As a Southern state seeking to keep the influence of outside forces from excessively impacting legislation and policies for Tennessee citizens, we must look at the funding behind these school choice efforts in both North Carolina and Tennessee.  There are similarities.  In North Carolina, someone analyzed organizations on both sides of the school choice debate and identified significant non-North Carolina sources of money.  We know that money influences politics through lobbying and public relations campaigns on the surface as well as formal and “informal” donations behind the scenes.   Alex Kotch wrote a revealing article in 2014 describing the influence of national organizations like the American Federations for Children promoting school choice while the National Education Association (representing teachers) spent money against school choice.  Mr. Kotch’s article provides further details on organizations within North Carolina who received money from these national organizations and how their money was spent to influence North Carolina elections and legislation.  (more about funding in another WPWL blog).  The State Policy Network website also mentions other organizations they credit with getting the recent 2023 universal expansion passed: “John Locke Foundation, 50CAN, EdChoice, ExcelinEd, and” (again) “the American Federation for Children.”  While Alex Kotch’s article includes the local groups lobbying for school choice, we can see that money outside the state likely played a major role in passing both rounds of North Carolina’s school choice legislation.  We will compare this to Tennessee in a bit.

                Anytime that big money like that associated with school choice programs begins to flow outward from any source including government, the potential for fraud grows.  The sinful nature of mankind will draw those who are seeking to gather some of this money without actually providing the service required for the money.  A report by the North Carolina Justice Center in June of 2023 reported that they found several instances of schools reporting having enrolled more school choice voucher students than they had reported as even enrolled in the whole school (Nordstrom 2023).  There was at least one instance of a school having to return such money confirming an error without addressing intentionality of the error (Nordstrom 2023).  The other concern expressed by school choice opponents has been the potential for fake schools to receive such government money.  If one follows the state reports on which schools are filed as private schools and how many voucher students they receive, you will see that many small schools come and go.  It is not clear if these are truly small schools that simply failed like any other business, or were never real in the first place.  Besides the outright financial fraud that occurs, many have questioned the quality of these schools in flux which is a reasonable question given the varying results reported further below. 

                Another comparison to consider is the cost of any government program, especially one with the sizable price tag attached to school choice.  The initial cost for North Carolina’s initial program for lower income families amounted to around 44 million for the 2017-2018 school year (McClellan 2023).  Now that their program has gone nuclear, I mean universal, the projections for year 2031 are around 500 million dollars (McClellan 2023).  Echoing the prior point about fraud, this amount of money will attract a lot of flies trying to fly away with some government money.  Even for the legitimate parents and private schools, such an influx of available money will greatly influence the economy of private schooling and public education in the state.  Since the idea’s inception, opponents of school choice have argued that removing those dollars from local schools will be devastating.  While no supporter of public education myself, I know that such a gap will be filled somehow from other government money and ultimately taxpayers.  I would like to see the public education system replaced completely, but given that the majority of conservatives and liberals both profess support for educating our future generations, neither side will let the public system ultimately fail or be replaced by something better.  Someone from some governmental office somewhere will be shifting other taxpayer funds to cover the gap.  I await to see what happens in North Carolina with the new Universal program. 

                With government money we always get accountability strings.  This seems intuitively reasonable as the citizen’s tax money deserves such accountability to be sure it is not wasted on fraud or poor outcomes.  Again, echoing the reality of fraud in any money giveaway by the government, we the taxpayers deserve to know that government is spending our money on what they say they are spending it on.  In general, conservatives and liberals can agree on this in principle even not perfectly in application.  For school choice funds, this means that private schools and parents of the children must comply with certain regulations or risk either losing the money or other legal repercussions.  One big debate in North Carolina (Associated Press 2023) centered around whether religious schools could receive government funding without violating separation of church and state.  For now, it was ruled constitutional, and no school is restricted based on teaching religious beliefs in their classrooms.  Time will tell if this freedom continues.  Another debate that is still underway addresses whether participating schools can refuse entry to students who disagree with their worldview regarding issues like gender, marriage, and other cultural dividing points.  This will be influenced by whether or not federal money is used as that money clearly contains thick strings regarding discrimination legalities.  Besides such issues of worldview, the North Carolina legislation does include a few strings explicitly.  All students in North Carolina are already required to take standardized tests so that has not changed with school choice initiation.  The legal code also includes the requirement for a certified public accountant to review the use of voucher money if it exceeds a specified amount.  The school is further prohibited from adding additional charges to voucher students based solely on being a voucher student which means that any increase in administrative costs will be spread over the entire student body, potentially increasing everyone’s costs of enrollment.  Schools with 25 or more students receiving North Carolina school vouchers must report an aggregate score for those students.  With this information, the school can be assessed on its success rate.  (North Carolina 115C-562).

Return in a few days for part 2

Bibliography of Parts 1 and 2:

Associated Press. (2023, April 20). N.C. Lawsuit Over Private School Scholarship Program dismissed. NC lawsuit over private school scholarship program dismissed. https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/charlotte/news/2023/04/20/n-c–lawsuit-over-private-school-scholarship-program-dismissed

Candidate survey results. North Carolinians for Home Education. (n.d.). https://www.nche.com/candidate-survey-results/

Egalite, A. J., Stallings, D. T., & Porter, S. R. (2020). An Analysis of the Effects of North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship Program on Student Achievement. AERA Open, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858420912347

Helms, A. D. (2023, June 30). How do North Carolina’s School Vouchers Work? as expansion looms, here are answers. WFAE 90.7 – Charlotte’s NPR News Source. https://www.wfae.org/education/2023-06-30/how-do-north-carolinas-school-vouchers-work-as-expansion-looms-here-are-answers

Kotch, A. (2014, August 29). The Big Money For and against school vouchers in North Carolina. Facing South. https://www.facingsouth.org/2014/08/the-big-money-for-and-against-school-vouchers-in-n.html

Mason, S. (2021, March 17). The ever-present opposition to Home Education. North Carolinians for Home Education. https://www.nche.com/opposition-to-home-education/

McClellan, H. (2023, April 26). Bill expanding N.C. Private School vouchers to all students moves forward in Senate. EducationNC. https://www.ednc.org/04-26-2023-bill-expanding-n-c-private-school-vouchers-to-all-students-moves-forward-in-senate/

Nordstrom, K. (2023, June 16). New analysis shows many private schools in N.C. have more vouchers than students. North Carolina Justice Center. https://www.ncjustice.org/analysis-nc-private-school-voucher-program/

North Carolina Legal Code 115C-562. Chapter 115C – Article 39. (n.d.). https://www.ncleg.net/enactedlegislation/statutes/html/byarticle/chapter_115c/article_39.html

Rhinesmith, Evan (2017) A review of the research on parent satisfaction in private school choice programs, Journal of School Choice, 11:4, 585-603, DOI: 10.1080/15582159.2017.1395639

State Policy Network. North Carolina Passes School Choice. (2023, September 25). https://spn.org/articles/north-carolina-passes-school-choice/

Tennessee Public Education Coalition. (2022, March 10). How charter schools and vouchers harm Tennessee students: Opinion. The Tennessean. https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2022/03/10/tennessee-educaiton-charter-schools-tennessee-public-education-coalition/9422346002/#:~:text=Knowledge%20Academies%20in%20Nashville%20lost,annual%20revenue%20of%20%247.1%20million%3B