What voucher foes can’t answer

An Arizona Republic analysis shows that a disproportionate number of those using Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, the state’s voucher program, are in affluent districts with supposedly highperforming schools. Today, vouchers are limited to students in particular categories, such as special education, military families, districts with “D”-rated schools. The Legislature is considering making vouchers available to all students.

Opponents are using the analysis as a club to beat the expansion to death. Vouchers are just a con job to help the rich pay to send their pampered offspring to posh private schools, they exhort. And drain resources from district schools for average Jacks and Jills.

There’s actually less here than meets the eye. ESAs are currently used mostly to help educate special-education students. It shouldn’t be surprising that affluent parents are quicker to find and use resources to help their special-needs children than low-income parents. But does that make the existence of the option a social injustice?

Moving these kids to private schools doesn’t hurt the schools or students left behind. In fact, the opposite.

It costs more to educate special ed kids than the districts get in funding from the state. A 2007 Department of Education audit, the last systematic review, put the deficiency statewide at nearly $100 million. School officials claim that it is a multiple of that now.

So, when special ed students walk out the door, more expenses than revenue go with them. In fact, many public schools in the state actually contract with private schools to take some of their special ed students, finding that less expensive.

The finding that vouchers are used by students in schools rated “A” or “B” might be of greater note if the state’s school rating system had any rigor, but it doesn’t. The state hasn’t rated schools since 2014. At that point, 65 percent of Arizona schools were rated “A” or “B.”

Virtually all of our schools are above average. If an “A” or a “B” rating was truly an indication of a high-performing school, everyone wouldn’t be crying over the quality of education in the state.

The use of vouchers by parents of special ed students isn’t necessarily predictive of what would happen if access to them were made universal. But it is suggestive.

I believe that the effect of universal vouchers is exaggerated by both sides. There isn’t that much pent-up demand for private school education in Arizona.

To the extent it exists, it would be disproportionately concentrated among upper middle-class parents who would like for their children to receive religious as well as academic instruction in school.

For these parents, the cost of sending their children to parochial school can be a considerable financial sacrifice. Truly high-performing charter schools with traditional programs have been cannibalizing parochial-school enrollments in upper middle-class neighborhoods. For some of these parents, a voucher could tip the balance back in favor of the parochial school.

So, is it a con job to argue that vouchers are intended to help low-income students and parents? Not entirely. It may be politically incorrect, but it would be obtuse not to acknowledge that upper middle-class parents are more likely than low-income parents to take an active role in their children’s education. Vouchers give low-income parents who want to take an active role in directing their children’s education more options.

The increase in private-school enrollment from a universal voucher would likely be exceedingly modest. The best evidence is that school-choice competition improves the performance of district schools.

Why shouldn’t all parents be able to use the collective pool of resources for the educational opportunity they think best for their children? Voucher opponents don’t have a good answer.