Support Public School Children in North Carolina: OPPOSE PRIVATE SCHOOL VOUCHERS

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1 Support Public School Children in North Carolina: OPPOSE PRIVATE SCHOOL VOUCHERS An Overview of North Carolina s Voucher Program The History of the Opportunity Scholarship Program In the 2013 state budget, the NC General Assembly created a school voucher program that diverts millions of taxpayer dollars from public schools to unaccountable private schools. In December 2013, 25 North Carolina taxpayers filed a lawsuit challenging the program s constitutionality. In August 2014, NC Superior Court Judge Robert H. Hobgood ruled the voucher program is unconstitutional. However, the program is in operation while the ruling is on appeal to the NC Supreme Court. That means today, millions of dollars that the state will never be able to get back are going to an unconstitutional program. Why the School Voucher Program is Unconstitutional Misuse of public funds: Public education funds must be used exclusively to fund a uniform system of free public schools. Misappropriating those funds to private schools is unconstitutional. Lack of accountability: Public schools are held to strict standards regarding curricula, testing, and teacher certification. But anyone can teach at a private school, and they can teach anything they want. There are no mandated academic standards or standardized tests. Plus, private schools are not responsible to the State Board of Education or any other public entity. It is the state s constitutional obligation to provide all students with a sound basic education. State leaders can t shift that responsibility to unaccountable private schools. Permission to discriminate: Private schools that discriminate against students on religious grounds or because of a student s disability or gender are still able to participate in the voucher program. The Court s Ruling In his ruling, Judge Hobgood was unequivocal in his condemnation of the school voucher program. Here is an excerpt: The General Assembly is required by mandate of the North Carolina Supreme Court to assure that the public schools grades K-12 meet the Leandro standard of providing a sound basic education. The General Assembly cannot constitutionally delegate this responsibility to unregulated private schools by use of taxpayer Opportunity Scholarships to low-income parents who have selfassessed their children to be at risk. Private schools receiving Opportunity Scholarships are not subject to any requirements or standards regarding curriculum that they teach, are given no requirement for student achievement, are not obligated to demonstrate any growth in student performance, and are not even obligated to provide a minimum amount of instructional time. The Opportunity Scholarships provide taxpayer funds to private schools without regard to whether these schools satisfy substantive educational standards. Appropriating taxpayer funds to unaccountable schools does not accomplish a public purpose, in violation of North Carolina Constitution Article 5, Sections 2(1) and 2(7). 1

2 How Vouchers Hurt Public Schools and Students Vouchers drain funding from underfunded public schools: North Carolina s public school system is one of the most underfunded in the nation, ranking 48 th among states in per-pupil spending and 46 th in average teacher salary. North Carolina s school voucher program could take up to $11.7 million out of the public school system this school year. In states with similar programs, the cost of the voucher program has grown exponentially each year. Vouchers do not have a track record of improving student achievement: In the school systems that have had voucher programs in place the longest Milwaukee and Cleveland students at traditional public schools outperform on proficiency measures when compared with students getting vouchers to attend private schools. None of the highest performing education systems in the United States or the rest of the world have achieved success by creating voucher programs all have done so by making strong commitments to public education. Private Schools are unaccountable for public funding: Private schools that participate in the voucher program are not required to be accredited, have a curriculum, hire licensed teachers, conduct criminal background checks of teachers and staff, report on student achievement, or administer state proficiency exams. Dozens of schools eligible to participate in the voucher program serve fewer than five students, and several enroll just one child. Most middle- and low-income families can only attend low-quality private schools with the vouchers: The amount of the voucher ($4,200) is far less than the cost of tuition at a high-quality North Carolina private school, which can exceed $20,000. The quality of private schools is closely tied to tuition, so the majority of voucher participants will only be able to attend the most inexpensive private schools. Nothing in the legislation guarantees the quality of these low-cost schools. How North Carolina s Voucher Program Operates The State Education Assistance Authority (SEAA) administers the voucher program and awards vouchers of up to $4,200 for eligible North Carolina school children to use at private schools. Traditional public schools and public charter schools are not eligible to receive vouchers. Student Eligibility Students receiving vouchers for the school year had to (1) have attended a public school for the previous semester, and (2) have a family income that does not exceed the amount required to qualify for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program, which is currently $43,568 for a family of four. Starting in the school year, students will be eligible for private school vouchers if their family income does not exceed 133% of the amount required to qualify for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program. This income ceiling is currently $57,945 for a family of four. 2

3 Students with Disabilities Schools participating in the voucher program are not obligated to admit or accommodate students with disabilities. Private schools are not obligated to comply with federal laws that protect students with disabilities or to provide disabled students with an individualized, appropriate education. Discrimination in School Admission and Enrollment The voucher law does not prevent private schools from discriminating in the admission or treatment of students on the basis of disability, gender, and religion. State officials are legally prohibited from asking private schools about their admissions policies. Standards, Accreditation, Transparency, and Accountability Private schools that receive vouchers are subject to few restrictions. They can be unaccredited, hire unqualified and unsafe teachers and employees, teach using unproven methods, and fail to improve student knowledge and performance in any measurable way. Only about 200 of the approximately 700 private schools in North Carolina are accredited. Private schools receiving voucher do not have to have certified teachers, and they do not have to conduct criminal background checks on staff. Individuals, institutions, or companies that own or operate private schools do not need to have any experience or expertise in education. There is no minimum school size for voucher eligibility, and 25 voucher-eligible schools have two or fewer students. Under current interpretation of the voucher statute by state officials, homeschooled students would be eligible to receive vouchers. Owners and operators of private schools are not subject to open meeting laws or any other requirements to ensure parents and the public can hold them accountable. Standards for Teachers and Staff Teachers at voucher-eligible private schools are not required to be licensed or have any particular credentials, degrees, experience, or expertise in education. Private schools are not required under the voucher program to monitor, evaluate, or measure the performance of teachers. While public school teachers must have a college degree and certification and home school teachers must have at least a high school degree, teachers in voucher-eligible private schools are not required to possess even a high school degree. Schools that receive vouchers are required to conduct a criminal background check only for the one staff member with the highest decision-making authority. No criminal background check is required for any other teacher or employee, and the state does not collect records to determine if a background check has been conducted. In public schools, everyone who interacts with students, including volunteers, must undergo a background check. Curriculum, Assessment, and Proficiency Voucher-eligible schools have no requirements regarding curriculum. They are not required to teach core subjects like math and reading and are free to teach an entirely religious curriculum. Private schools are not obligated to meet the requirements of the Common Core curriculum or any other 3

4 recognized standard for educating children. They are not required to provide a minimum number of days or hours of instruction. Private schools eligible for vouchers are not subject to any requirements for student achievement. They must administer a nationally standardized test of their choosing, but there is no requirement that this test measure any particular level of educational achievement. The test must measure students in the areas of English and mathematics, but it is not required to measure student proficiency in science, history, social studies, or any other subject. If the school has fewer than 25 voucher students, it doesn t have to report the scores to the state. The Division of Non-Public Education keeps no files on how students perform on standardized tests. The test does not need to be a current test, meaning vouchereligible schools can use standardized tests designed decades ago. Voucher Programs Do Not Have a Proven Record of Academic Success The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in various subject areas. NAEP assessments are administered uniformly using the same sets of test booklets across the nation, so NAEP results serve as a common metric for all states and selected urban districts. The results from the NAEP show that public schools actually do a better job than private schools of educating students when results are adjusted for student characteristics like socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, gender, disability, limited English proficiency, and school location. A review of the performance of the nation s longest-running and most heavily evaluated voucher programs shows that vouchers do not improve academic outcomes for students. In fact, public school students regularly outperform voucher recipients in these school districts. The Milwaukee Parental Choice (MPC) Program was established in 1990 and is the longest-running voucher program in the United States. The majority of studies of MPC find that students in Milwaukee Public Schools perform either the same or better than students in the voucher program. The most recent study of this program concluded that Milwaukee students participating in the voucher program performed significantly worse in both reading and math than students in Milwaukee Public Schools. Milwaukee Public School students outperformed voucher students in math, with 50% scoring proficient compared to 41% of voucher students. Milwaukee Public School students also outscored their voucher counterparts 60% to 57% in reading. Across subject areas and grades, Milwaukee Public School students outperformed voucher students on 13 of 14 commonly used assessments of student proficiency. The voucher program has failed to improve Milwaukee s standing as one of the lowestperforming large districts in the nation on the NAEP, ranking ahead of only the Detroit Public Schools. 4

5 The Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program is the nation s second-longest-running voucher program. The most comprehensive evaluations of the program show public school students made greater learning gains in comparison to voucher recipients, even though voucher recipients were less likely to be low-income. According to the most recent comparisons, Cleveland voucher recipients perform worse than public school students on 10 out of 14 available proficiency measures. The voucher program has failed to improve Cleveland s schools, as Cleveland is also one of the lowest-performing large districts on the NAEP. Vouchers Provide Taxpayer-funded Windfalls to Wealthy Families Proponents of vouchers claim they expand educational options for low-income students. However, voucher programs in other states have failed to effectively target these students. Instead, voucher programs have provided a taxpayer-funded windfall to families that would have sent their children to private schools even without a voucher program. The amount of the voucher ($4,200) is much smaller than the cost of private schooling, particularly at prestigious schools, and low- and middle-income families are unable to make up the difference. By contrast, higher-income families take advantage of vouchers as a taxpayer-funded subsidy to help pay for private school tuition, which they otherwise would have had to pay in full. The two most comprehensively evaluated voucher schemes in Cleveland and Milwaukee show that these programs serve a population of students that is less impoverished than the students in the traditional public schools. Private Schools Abuse Taxpayer Dollars In most voucher programs, including North Carolina s, taxpayers and elected officials have no way of knowing if private schools are spending public funds wisely. This lack of accountability has led to serious abuses in other jurisdictions. In Milwaukee, voucher funds paid for luxury cars, gold necklaces, and personal real estate. Cash even went into the pockets of school operators who were later found guilty of embezzlement. A recent study found that Wisconsin has lost $139 million in funding to private schools that were ultimately prohibited from participating in the program for failing to meet programmatic standards. In Florida, 25 cases of fraud have been substantiated regarding the McKay Opportunity Scholarship, including one school that defrauded the state out of more than $200,000 by claiming to serve students with disabilities who had never enrolled. How You Can Help Write an opinion piece a letter to the editor for your local paper. Educate your neighbors and community groups about the dangers of vouchers. Invite your legislator to a community forum to discuss the voucher program. 5