Anytime that anyone spends any money, we want to assure that we are getting what we paid for.  If we are considering whether or not to buy the next book in the school choice series, we should consider if the last book gave us the results we had hoped for.  With school choice, a primary foundation for implementation is to improve the education of the children receiving the scholarship or voucher.  The initial report on North Carolina State recipients was initially mildly encouraging. In a comparison of 245 students receiving voucher funding for private school enrollment, language scores improved but not math scores.  When further analyzing the data, these improvements were primarily in voucher studens from Catholic schools who were already administering the test being used to compare.  This suggested a potential bias in that the Catholic schools were teaching to the standardized test used for comparison giving them an advantage.  Given the difficulty of such a comparison even with standardized testing, further comparison was made and another study conducted.  This time the results by Duke University were less encouraging as described in the Helms article.               

“The Duke study, published in 2020, reports that initial requirements to provide some measure of academic outcomes have been weakened or ignored, and that ‘“’the data do not exist due to the lack of comparable testing between public and private school students.’”’”

This would seem poorly supportive of implementing school choice   Both logic and general consensus in education agree that using a curriculum which prepares students for a particular standardized test usually results in better test scores on that particular test, but not always for a different standardized test.  The study acknowledged multiple formidable challenges in creating an apples to apples comparison to determine true outcomes for school choice programs.  With taking all into consideration, especially the potential confounding factors of curriculum choices influencing test scores, the assurance of school choice supporters that we are getting our money’s worth is a little thin.   As I described in a prior article, this lack of impressive return on investment is common across other state programs which have attempted similar assessments.

                While the largest number of students still attend public or private schools, a sizable number of parents are choosing to homeschool their children for a variety of reasons.  Although, a program to fund private schools would not seem to automatically impact these homeschoolers, as is often the case with government, reality is not so simple.  At this point in North Carolina, I cannot find anyone who has clearly reported on positive or negative impacts on homeschoolers who elect to receive school choice funding or those who don’t.  As noted earlier, the statewide homeschooling association advises against participation in the current program for a number of reasons.  No one has reported on how many homeschoolers have or plan to participate and receive a school voucher.  No one has reported on any outcomes in these cases.  North Carolina homeschoolers already have to administer a state standardized test yearly, so school choice does not add any burden in this regard.

                As with any legislation, the first round which passes can seem innocuous, not adding strings or limitations to homeschooling freedoms.  The future alterations can be a greater source of danger. The next legislative session can amend the innocuous prior bill and add restrictive strings without having to fight the entire original battle for passing.  This can happen without anyone noticing until it is too late.  In North Carolina, a survey by the NCHEA would seem encouraging in how many current legislators reported being homeschoolers or having a positive attitude towards them, but some quoted responses were clearly a little off (Candidate Survey Results).  Given some of the proposed bills in recent sessions (NCHE Legislative Update), North Carolina homeschooling parents should not relax and trust their children’s educational freedoms to these supportive opinions.  Even if the legislators don’t make changes, there is a risk that the educational bureaucracy will “interpret” passed legislation differently than lawmakers intended.  We saw this recently in Tennessee regarding when legislation to remove the immunization reporting requirement for homeschoolers was reinterpreted as not removing the requirement by the state’s education department.  Lawmakers had to make a formal statement of their intent before the educational bureaucrats relented.  Similar reinterpretations occurred in Indiana.

                Looking at this School Choice book in the series, we in Tennessee should consider if we want to purchase a Tennessee edition or not.  We can see similar patterns developing already beginning with the small size start up in a few Tennessee counties now being pushed to expand across the state.  We see similar outside funding sources pushing this agenda as I describe in another article (LINK) with American Federation for Children along with 50CAN pouring money into Tennessee organizations just like North Carolina.  We already see several instances of charter schools which already receive current school choice money being caught up in fraud and wasted taxpayer money. (Tennessee Public Education Coalition 2022).  The funding for Tennessee is projected in the hundreds of millions like North Carolina, but so far politicians have been promising that public education will not lose funding.  That means the money has to come from somewhere since our government can’t grow it on trees (just printing presses).  A clear answer to that “where” has not been forthcoming so far.  The accountability debate is already in full swing in Tennessee as liberals and public-school advocates as well as conservatives demand to know how government money is being spent.  While many claim that no strings will be attached, no one should believe for a minute that regulations will not follow the money which is following the child to a private school or to a homeschool.

                Tennessee citizens, whether being parents or not, should also ask whether we will get any better results from all this money than North Carolina is receiving.  While parent satisfaction scores from other states do increase (Rhinesmith 2017) can we consider these debatable score improvements worth the effort and cost?  Is the greater determinant from which curriculum is chosen and thus the score depends more on preparation by a school for a particular test than the actual quality of instruction at a private school instead of a public school. 

                For homeschooling families in Tennessee who currently possess a little more freedom to do so than North Carolina families, what can we expect Tennessee’s version of school choice to bring.  For those who take the voucher money, they should expect at least a few accountability strings.  For those who don’t accept such government funding, will we be sucked into the regulations since many of us homeschool under umbrella programs.  While umbrella school involvement in homeschooling is not an option in North Carolina, Tennessee umbrella schools which accept voucher students could be forced to comply with more regulations. These regulations would eventually filter down to all homeschoolers in their umbrella schools even if they don’t accept voucher money themselves.  This is an unanswered question at present.  While I would not trust North Carolina legislators’ good wishes for homeschooling which they claim, I definitely would not trust our Tennessee legislators given past bill proposals like HB1214 in 2023.  Without significant pushback from homeschoolers, homeschooling freedoms would have been harmed.   During interactions with legislators regarding that bill, one lawmaker expressed concern for parents who claimed to be homeschooling, but who instead used that as excuse to take their children out of school.  This lawmaker wanted more regulations over all homeschoolers for the potential tiny numbers of parents who might do this.  Clearly, the lawmakers don’t trust the majority of parents to educate their own children. 

                In conclusion, school choice, whether called a voucher or a scholarship, is not automatically a win for either the students who participate or for those who don’t.  Tennessee, like North Carolina, is being intentionally influenced by forces outside the state.  There will be a similar high dollar cost without a clear reward.  The proposed program may have negative effects on homeschool legal code.  Homeschoolers must stay vigilant and not trust our legislators who generally believe that government and their elite bureaucratic advisors know what is best for our children.  In both Tennessee and North Carolina, we therefore have the same school choice book publishers pushing the same agenda trying to promote another tearjerker solution for our failing public education system promising a better ending while spending lots of money on an unproven storyline of school choice.  I say, “Let’s put the book back on the shelf and try a different book.”

Bibliography for 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