(Having explained how school choice falls short by its own standards yesterday in Part 3, I bring this series to a close by looking at some unexpected outcomes from passing school choice before bringing the whole picture together in a conclusion.)
Having considered the strings attached to school choice programs and the lackluster performance of the programs by their own standards, we can consider some intangibles that don’t show up in statistical analyses. While these educational policies could seem focused on schools, government spending, and their impacts on the achievement of future adults in society, these are public policy decisions which exert secondary and tertiary effects outside of whether or not a child graduates from high school or college. We can consider the “unintended” consequences of such public policies in the following areas. First, the manipulation of market competition by pumping money into a business sector will affect who succeeds and who fails in that area. We can see how this may be affecting Catholic schools as described below. Second, we can see what happens when a business decides to receive promised funding from a program, delivers the services, yet has to wait longer than promised to receive the payments. We see that occurring recently in Florida. Third, we step back into the big picture of government spending and its true calculations. In a simple example, we consider who pays for these programs. Fourth, we return to the first consideration regarding the effects of government money pouring into education. We know that other sectors of our economy appear to have experienced price inflation with the addition of government money and ask if that will repeat with school choice funding entering the private education sector.
First, when we consider that the main driving force behind market growth and competition is money. While businesses, including schools, may express noble founding principles in their mission statements, if they cannot pay their bills and their salaries, they will not continue to provide such noble services. Money must fuel the mission. With that in mind, the millions of dollars that the government’s school choice programs are pouring into or will be pouring into the private school market are sure to influence which schools succeed. Those that optimize the influx of this money will probably slowly push out those that do not optimize such influx by following government rules. The Pew Research Center notes that the Philadelphia Catholic school system attributes charter school competition as one of the two factors in more Catholic schools closing in that city. The exact contribution of such competition as compared to the declining number of Catholics living in the city cannot be determined, but they do consider this as an important factor. The Manhattan Institute article by Nicole Garnett in 2023 also considers this as a possible factor for the closing rates of faith-based schools across the nation referencing 3 other reports in their endnotes #11. With all this in mind, we don’t have clear direct causation proof, but it does raise a number of concerns that deserver further research and attention.
Second, a business owner or manager should always be careful about agreeing to provide services prior to receiving payment for those services. The health care industry functions under the promises that a medical provider will receive a payment for a visit or procedure within a specified period of time from a third-party payor like an insurance company. If the insurance company unexpectedly delays payment for 30, 60, or 90 days, the cash flow for that clinic or hospital will be impacted adversely. Even if they eventually get a payment, their expenses do not wait for revenue to arrive. If a cushion is not present, businesses may not be able to pay their monthly bills. If private schools or other educational providers must likewise wait for the government to reimburse for services already provided, they may find themselves falling short on their rent, utilities, or salaries. This happened in Florida with their current school choice program. Several news articles describe how providers of various services to special needs children were forced to take out loans in order to keep businesses open when the state could not keep up with payments. The businesses had already provided services with the promise of payments which were delayed without explanation. While larger companies might weather such storms, smaller businesses are at risk of going under when this occurs. Poorly managed school choice programs could put such small businesses or schools at risk by delaying payments. Do we want the government to have any even bigger role in education like it does with health care through Medicaid and Medicare?
Third, the whole notion of giving parents back money that they paid in taxes so they can choose a better school is at best a half-truth. While other articles by Nikki Truesdale and others go into more detail, a simple calculation demonstrates the full truth that school choice does not simply refund your taxes. Just do these numbers in your head. If you own a home, you pay property taxes which go to school funding. If you pay $3000-5000 in taxes, but have two children receiving $6000 in school vouchers, then you profited $7000 to $9000. Someone else had to pay that difference. If you rent your home and don’t pay property taxes, you scored an even bigger win. Beyond that for Tennessee, while school choice advocates often claim that public schools will have money diverted to private schools, our legislators are reportedly reassuring public school defenders that the money for Tennessee’s program will not come from the public-school funds. In other words, we are still paying taxes that go to the public-schools and then some other government money (again, from other taxes) will cover the additional private school choice funding. If this is confirmed, it is another example of their playing both sides of the debate.
Fourth, returning to the example of healthcare and adding higher education, many have a strong case that government financial involvement in both economic sectors have driven up prices for healthcare and college. A Cato Institute article considers whether school choice programs are driving up the cost of private schools. They note that concrete examples only exist for Iowa and Florida at this time, but the potential is real. This would make sense as private schools face two influences with potential to do so. On one hand, they will have more administrative costs in order comply with state regulations for receiving the money. On the other, with more demand for their services, they can charge more money to cover their already existing costs. We will have to await to see whether this trend continues but it is a factor that could later decrease the access to private schools for others not receiving vouchers or even those who receive vouchers but cannot afford the extra few thousand dollars of price increase.
We can see that school choice in whatever pretty package they call it has had several chances to succeed but instead has only succeeded in adding strings to parents and schools while falling short of its own outcome measures and contributing to downstream problems. Before the false advertising of this growing movement becomes more entrenched into societal thinking, morphing into an expected entitlement, let’s put on the brakes, step back, and reconsider what we are doing to our children and our nation. Despite being promoted as a conservative movement to save children by the public schools, we can agree with Nikki Truesdale on her blog that school choice is not truly conservative in taking money from one group to provide services to another while increasing the control of government over education. Israel Wayne strikes an even deeper principle with this quote:
“To argue for vouchers is to imply that the government has a valid, compelling interest in the education of children. I disagree with this premise on several levels, but you will have to see my previous essay, “A Christian Education Manifesto” for a bit more of the rationale behind that. God has given children to parents, not to the government, to feed, clothe, shelter and educate.” — Israel Wayne
For homeschoolers, the reality of what politicians think of those of us who want real educational freedom can be seen in this quote:
“This week, Republican Senator Jean Leising introduced SB 428 which specifically targets homeschooling families in Indiana for scrutiny. The bill itself amends the current practice of gathering information on child fatalities involving families of adoptees. With this bill, the Indiana Child Services report would be required to report annually on how many child fatalities “solely received home based instruction”.” – Article by Slatter.
All parents should consider the underlying principles that those in government and education fields frequently believe that they know better than parents what is best for our children’s education.
Final Remarks:
1. School choice comes with strings that grow into chains – Money follows the child and the government follows the money.
2. School choice spends lots of our money and our neighbors money without a clear return on investment even by their own standards
3. School choice carries many delayed hidden costs which is like enrolling in a subscription to bad service that you can’t later cancel.
If we allow them to infiltrate their financial influence further and further into the actual school freedoms we already have, then we all lose. School choice is false advertising, don’t buy into it.
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