School voucher advocates see a political opening
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary manages a political action committee that successfully backed several Oklahoma candidates last month, potentially giving the state Legislature enough votes to pass through a school voucher plan.
Trump tapped Betsy DeVos to head the U.S. Department of Education, despite not having worked as an educator.
Instead, DeVos has operated the American Federation for Children, a nonprofit that spent nearly $170,000 in Oklahoma campaigns this year, often in opposition to public school teachers who were also running.
DeVos’ selection reinforces Trump’s vow to expand school choice, which could include a federal grant program for low-income students to pay for enrollment in private school.
Education savings accounts (ESAs) and vouchers have not been easy sells, including in the GOP-controlled Oklahoma Legislature. But last month’s election results on both the national and state level have some school choice advocates seeing a political opening.
“There is definitely going to be some movement on education savings accounts this next year in Oklahoma,” said Sen. Kyle Loveless, R-Mustang. “Last year we were a couple of votes short in the Senate but
I think we picked those seats up this year.”
Even with Republican majorities in both the state House and Senate, efforts to push forward school vouchers the last two years stalled. But Republicans increased their numbers in both chambers last month, and along with an incoming Republican president, Loveless said there is a lot of momentum for the school choice movement.
“I believe that the time is now,” Loveless said.
Next year
Education savings accounts and school vouchers allow families to use some or all of their child’s state appointed funding to go towards enrollment at a private school or to pay for other educational resources, such as tutoring.
Any effort by the Legislature to push forward a voucher plan would likely meet fierce resistance and organizations that advocate for public schools said the focus next session should be on funding and teacher pay.
“We need to take care of those problems before we talk about redirecting money away from public schools,” said Shawn Hime, executive director of the Oklahoma State School Boards Association.
Hime also questioned the enthusiasm incoming lawmakers have for vouchers and believed even under a Trump administration a federal funding program for school choice would be difficult to complete.
“It’s way too early to tell where our newly elected legislators fall on this,” Hime said.
Incoming House Speaker Charles McCall’s office said the priorities for next session are still to be determined but education funding is expected to be a central issue.
The 75-member Republican caucus plans to meet in the upcoming days to develop an agenda that is likely to be released next month, said Jason Sutton, a spokesman for Rep. McCall.
School choice
School choice can include a wide range of policies with at least 13 states currently operating some type of voucher plan.
“When people hear choice they automatically think of private school or a charter school, or a school for an exclusive group of people,” said Valerie Thompson, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Oklahoma City. “What we think is that parents should be able to ask ‘Is this the right school for my child?’”
Thompson said she has seen a growing push for various forms of school choice in urban and minority communities, which can create strange bedfellows.
“I’m a lifelong Democrat and will remain that way, but I think the school choice issue has to be nonpartisan,” said Ray Owens, leader of the Metropolitan Baptist Church in a largely black Tulsa community.
Owens describes many of the children in his neighborhood as being “locked-out” of quality schools and he has advocated for charter school expansion. He also supports looking at savings accounts and vouchers as a solution for urban education.
“Can ESAs and vouchers provide high-quality education options for kids from low-income communities?” Owens asked himself. “The answers aren’t clear, but if we can find a way for even ESA or traditional voucher programs to work for kids who are locked out of high-quality schools then we have to look at them.”
Congress rejected a school voucher plan last year during reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, but Trump and his education secretary are expected to push for another plan, which could include a $20 billion voucher program for low-income students.
Federal plan
Observers on both sides of the issue still believe a federal voucher plan would face heavy challenge but would find willing participation in Oklahoma.
“If you’re talking about enormous amounts of money (from the federal government) to try vouchers, virtual schools, for-profit charters, then I’m afraid that will encourage people in Oklahoma to lean on the politics of blowing up public schools,” said John Thompson, a former Oklahoma City teacher who writes extensively on education policy.
Thompson believes some charter schools and voucher programs siphon resources away from struggling schools and can create urban schools with even deeper levels of concentrated poverty. He also views damaging traditional public schools as a tactic to prove that public schools don’t work, which opens the door to more school choice.
“It’s your standard message that government is the enemy and you need to shrink it,” Thompson said. “To me, this push for vouchers is a way of saying public schools aren’t working, but they aren’t trying to help them work.”
While state efforts to push vouchers and education savings accounts have failed, lawmakers did agree on a charter school expansion plan last year that opened charters beyond Tulsa and Oklahoma City. A few rural communities have already begun to take advantage of the law change.
It’s unknown what the results of next year’s legislative session will be, but it appears likely school choice will be a topic of discussion on both the state and federal levels.
Shortly after DeVos’ appointment, Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole, who is chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that oversees the budget for the Departments of Education, praised Trump’s pick and listed off the possible school choice policies she could attempt to push forward.
“She is an advocate of charter schools, vouchers, opportunity scholarships and homeschooling,” Cole, R-Moore, said. “Her steady leadership and depth of knowledge will be fundamental in improving our nation’s education system.”