Coons and Sugarman's Proposal for Income-Adjusted Vouchers Revived (Jan. 4)
In the 1970s, the legal scholars John Coons and Stephen Sugarman developed an income-adjusted voucher plan for California, entitled the California Initiative for Family Choice in Education, and attempted in 1979 to get it on the state ballot for a referendum vote. Yet despite much publicity, their petition drive fell far short of harvesting the number of signatures necessary to place the initiative on the ballot.
In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal today, Mark Brilliant and Steven Davidoff Solomon nevertheless contended it is time to revive Coons and Sugarman's proposal. According to Brilliant and Solomon, professors of history and law, respectively, at the University of California, Berkeley, the pandemic should make Coons and Sugarman's proposal all the more compelling.
"It’s time to revisit their liberal version of vouchers," Brilliant and Solomon wrote. "During the pandemic the achievement gap expanded as the rich created pods, hired tutors, and moved to private schools or districts with open schools. Poor children suffered in ways that will last a lifetime. Vouchers are a liberal idea that should be adopted to give all parents equal opportunities to educate their children at the school of their choice. Surely, correcting the fundamental unfairness of a system that allows choice only for those with means is something conservatives and liberals can agree on."
While the pandemic does indeed appear to have broadened the achievement gap, there is little if any evidence of greater support today than in 1979 for the income-adjusted voucher proposal advanced by Coons and Sugarman. Brilliant and Solomon certainly do not provide any such evidence in their op-ed.
- S.E. Abrams
New Orleans Shutters Two Charters as District Looks to “Right-Size” (Jan. 5)
Two New Orleans charter schools will close at the end of this school year, following a proposal by the district superintendent to “right-size” due to declining enrollment and financial duress caused by COVID-19, The Lens reported. FirstLine Charter Schools’ Live Oak elementary and IDEA’s Oscar Dunn charter will join two other charters that are being closed for failing to meet academic and operational standards.
In December, the school district’s Interim Chief School Accountability Officer presented a District Optimization plan. The study found that schools in the all-charter district have a combined 3,000 seats of excess capacity and reported that the district would recommend changes that could include charter consolidations and closures, The Lens reported.
The first closure was announced just after the New Year, when the FirstLine Charter Network CEO announced the closure of the D-rated Live Oaks elementary school. This year, according to The Lens, the school enrolled 315 students, short of its 500-student enrollment goal and well below enrollment seen in the previous four years. Because schools operate on a per-pupil budget, that deficit means that Live Oaks has to operate on funds from the network’s budget. The second closure is the IDEA network’s three-year-old Oscar Dunn charter, The Lens reported. The F-rated school enrolled 342 students this year, well below the enrollment of 522 reported on the school’s Web site.
More closures and consolidations are expected to be announced over the next several weeks as the New Orleans Public Schools District attempts to reconcile a decade of charter growth with the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and slower-than-expected population growth.
- A. Thomas
Tutoring Companies in China Nosedive (Jan. 11)
The widely reported crackdown by the Chinese government on tutoring companies in July has already had a dramatic impact on the industry, reported The Wall Street Journal. One of China's largest tutoring companies, New Oriental Education and Technology Group was forced to cut staff from 110,000 to 50,000 in 2021 and saw its market capitalization plummet 90 percent, from $33 billion to $3.2 billion. The company's competitors TAL Education Group and Gaotu Techedu posted similar declines.
According to the Journal, "New Oriental said [in November] it would stop offering tutoring for school subjects to students from kindergarten through grade nine, which is the last year of compulsory education in China, by the end of 2021. The company added that the halt would have a 'substantial adverse impact' on its future revenue as these tutoring services accounted for roughly 60% of its total revenue in its 2021 fiscal year."
While banning for-profit tutoring services is meant to alleviate the anxiety and financial burden associated with succeeding in the Chinese education system, reported The New York Times in July, the rules may actually create new pressures. Families often rely on such after-school programs for childcare, and the new policies come with no guarantees of a replacement. Instead, wealthy families will likely flock to private tutors or evade the new rules by shifting to online services and “paying through foreign payment systems,” Kevin Ferrone, the academic dean at Crimson Global Academy, an online school, told the Times. This will leave those families that can’t afford private or illicit services behind.
This crackdown on for-profit tutoring is not the only step that Beijing has taken to tame the country’s hyper-competitive education system, reported the Times. The government has also banned homework, limited livestreaming hours for online tutors, and created more slots at top universities.
- S.E. Abrams
Nebraska Rejects Vouchers for Second Time in Nine Months (Jan. 12)
Nebraska’s unicameral legislature rejected school vouchers for the second time in nine months after a successful filibuster, The Journal Star reported. The Opportunity Scholarships Act would have established a $5 million tax-credit voucher program, allowing “taxpayers to receive credit on up to half of their annual income tax liability if they donated to funds that provide tuition and fees for low-income students attending a private school,” according to the Journal Star.
Opponents criticized the bill for redirecting state funds away from public schools and to private schools “not bound to the same non-discrimination laws as state-funded schools,” reported the Journal Star. An amendment prohibiting scholarship funds from going to schools that discriminate against students failed with the support of only 17 of the legislature’s 49 senators. Other opponents said that the vouchers would not create opportunity in rural areas, where the challenge of achieving economies of scale largely preclude the operation of alternative schools. What is certain, said Senator Wendy DeBoer, is that the proposed program would benefit wealthy with $5 million in tax credits each year, the Journal Star reported.
Supporters of the bill are committed to reintroducing the Opportunity Scholarship Act again this year, according to the Journal Star. “We are not saying this is a silver bullet,” Omaha Senator Justin Wayne told the paper, “but we are saying give this a chance.”
- A. Thomas
Iowa Governor Re-Proposes Vouchers, Citing Pandemic (Jan. 13)
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds proposed a new voucher program dubbed “Students First Scholarships,” according to KCCI Des Moines. Under the program, eligible families would receive 70 percent of a student’s state education funding. That amounts to awards of $5,359 that could be put toward private school tuition, tutoring, or other qualifying expenses.
Families would be subject to income restrictions similar to voucher programs in other states: household income cannot exceed 400 percent of the federal poverty level, meaning the most a family of four could make is $106,000 per year, according to KCCI. Students with individualized education plans (IEP) of all income levels would also be eligible. In its first year, the program would be capped at 10,000 scholarships.
Iowa State Education Association President Mike Beranek challenged the program, KCCI reported, citing public school budgets that are spread thin and demanding more investment, not more cuts. “It is inconceivable that we should find a way to reduce the funds from one of our most important economic engines in the state,” he said in the statement.
The Republican Governor issued a similar proposal last year that failed in the Iowa House, with lawmakers citing concerns that the bill would hurt enrollment in small, rural schools that were already struggling, KCCI reported. In supporting her proposal, Klein relied on campaign-tested conservative rhetoric around the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on education.
- A. Thomas
Wall Street Journal Praises Arizona Governor Ducey’s Latest Pandemic Voucher (Jan. 15)
In an op-ed criticizing the Chicago Teachers Union’s refusal to teach in-person classes during the current spike in COVID-19 cases, the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal praised a new voucher program in Arizona that gives federal aid to families whose schools shut down as “show[ing] the way to respond to unions that refuse to teach.”
The new program, the Open for Learning Recovery Benefit, was announced by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey days after his office received a second threatening letter from the Treasury Department warning him that his anti-mask voucher programs are not a permissible use of American Rescue Plan aid money, AZ Central reported.
The new program is a $10 million pre-emptive measure, offering $7,000 vouchers to qualifying families if they need to move their students should their school close, according to AZ Central. In order to qualify, according to Governor Ducey’s office, parents must demonstrate that their current school or classroom has closed in-person instruction and is not benefiting from either of the two contested anti-mask voucher programs previously established by Ducey’s office. In addition, parents must show that their household income does not exceed 350 percent of the Federal Poverty Level.
Days before announcing the new program, Ducey’s office received a letter from the Treasury Department elevating threats to withhold federal stimulus dollars and recoup distributed pandemic aid should the governor continue to refuse to make changes to the two voucher programs that channel aid to schools that do not implement recommended public health protocols, AZ Central reported. In September, Ducey used federal aid from the American Rescue Plan to create a $10 million program that provides up to $7,000 per student to families who wish to transfer out of a school that requires masks as well as a separate $163 million grant program that provides additional per-pupil funding to schools that do not require their students to wear masks, according to Education Week.
Ducey’s open defiance of the Treasury Department was applauded by the Journal’s editorial board, which condemned teachers unions as blind to the interests of students.
- A. Thomas
Navient to Cancel $1.7 Billion in Student Loans in Broad Settlement (Jan. 16)
Student loan servicing giant Navient reached a $1.85 billion deal with 39 states to settle claims that it made predatory loans that burdened borrowers with crushing debts, promising to settle $1.7 billion in delinquent private student loan debts for nearly 66,000 borrowers and pay $95 million in restitution, The New York Times reported.
Most of those whose loans will be forgiven went to schools managed by major for-profit chains—including ITT, Corinthian Colleges, DeVry University, and Education Management Corporation—that are required by law to derive no more than 90 percent of their tuition payments from federal funding. Both ITT and Corinthian Colleges have collapsed in recent years. Private loans, like those from Navient, were intended to supply that 10 percent and attract students who would take out the lucrative federal loans that for-profit schools relied on, according to the Times. Navient described the private loans as a “baited hook” to bring in more federally backed loans, according to court filings.
Only past-due loans made in and after 2002 at certain for-profit schools or through Navient initiatives will be cancelled, the Times reported. The loans of those who were current on their payments as of June 30, 2021, as well as those who live in 11 states that did not take part in the deal, will not be cancelled.
Navient, based in Wilmington, Delaware, did not admit to any fault in the settlement, and said in a statement that it did not act illegally.
Navient split from Sallie Mae in 2014. Last year, they decided to get out of the federal student loan business, the Times reported, ending its contract with the Education Department and transferring its 5.6 million borrower accounts to a new vendor. They retained a portfolio of private student loans worth billions of dollars, however, and later resumed issuing new loans. Since its split from Sallie Mae, Navient has issued $17 billion in new private loans.
- A. Thomas
West Virginia Lawsuit Threatens Country’s Broadest Voucher Program (Jan. 21)
A lawsuit filed by West Virginia parents challenges the constitutionality of the state’s sweeping “Hope Scholarship” voucher program, reported The Journal of Martinsburg. The plaintiffs filed suit against State Treasurer Riley Moore—who is charged with managing the program—as well as the state superintendent of schools, the president of the West Virginia Board of Education, the president of the state Senate, and speaker of the state House, and Governor Jim Justice, according to the Journal, and charged that the Hope Scholarships violate the state’s constitutional duty to provide “a thorough and efficient system of free schools.”
House Bill 2013 was signed into law in March, establishing the Hope Scholarship Program, an education savings account (ESA) voucher program that allows parents to use a portion of the state’s per-pupil expenditure for private school tuition, home tutoring, and other educational expenses. The bill caps the voucher at $4,600 per student, the Journal reported.
While similar ESA voucher programs in other states are limited to specific subsets of students or have caps on the number of recipients, West Virginia’s program “will be open to all K-12 students, including by offering money to families who already don’t use the public school system,” making it the broadest program in the nation, according to the West Virginia Gazette.
With two months until the application period opens, this lawsuit could delay the rollout of the program.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of an injunction ordered by a West Virginia circuit court judge in December that temporarily blocked the approval of new charter schools by the state’s unelected Professional Charter School Board, while a case over the constitutionality of the state’s charter school law is heard, according to WCHS. The plaintiffs—public school teachers and union members—argue that residents should have a say in whether or not a charter school is established in their county.
- A. Thomas
Pennsylvania Republicans Propose Yearly Increase in Tax Credit Scholarship Caps (Jan. 22)
Pennsylvania’s Senate Education Committee advanced legislation that would increase caps for the Education Improvement Tax Credit and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit programs by 25 percent following every fiscal year where at least 90 percent of available tax credits are claimed, WFMZ reported. The programs offer tax deductions to businesses that contribute to scholarship organizations that provide tuition assistance to eligible students attending private schools.
Senate Republicans cited a memorandum attached to the bill that found that “nearly 43,000 student applications were denied” scholarships last year and argued that “the automatic escalator” of increasing the cap in reaction to the program’s use would solve the “mismatch” whereby businesses that apply for the tax credits are turned away due to caps and students are not given scholarships due to lack of funds, according to WFMZ.
The latest Republican proposal comes on the heels of a $40 million infusion for the state’s Education Improvement Tax Credit program included in Pennsylvania’s latest budget, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Plans for such a proposal were announced in July, when Democratic Governor Tom Wolf signed the budget.
Republican Senator Mike Regan defended the proposed legislation with a study that said expanding the tax-credit programs would create “$7.4 billion more in lifetime earnings from increased academic achievement” and over $2.5 billion in savings for the state on “social costs,” adding that “throwing more money at those failing schools has proven time and time again not to be the answer to the problem,” WFMZ quoted.
Senate Democrat Lindsey Williams, weary of an estimated increased cost of more than $2.3 billion over 10 years, questioned “the Legislature’s willingness to fully invest in public schools to meet our constitutional obligation to provide a thorough and efficient system of education,” according to WFMZ.
- A. Thomas
Tennessee Advances Voucher Bill to Challenge Virtual Learning (Jan. 24)
A Senate panel approved legislation that would extend voucher eligibility to students whose school systems do not offer in-person learning all year, Chalkbeat reported. The original draft included a provision that would also have extended vouchers to students whose parents do not wish to follow school mask mandates, but it was removed from the amended bill.
Tennessee’s voucher program became law in 2019 but was halted by a court in 2020 because it applied only to students in Memphis and Nashville, a decision that is currently being appealed, Chalkbeat reported. The new voucher bill includes the same eligibility requirements as the 2019 law but expands beyond Memphis and Nashville to “any district that does not offer 180 days of in-person learning because of the coronavirus pandemic for the three upcoming school years beginning September 1, 2022,” according to Chalkbeat.
Republican lawmakers voiced their support for the bill by citing declining test scores in large school districts that closed their doors during the pandemic. Senator Mike Bell, who co-sponsored the bill, said that “in-person learning is the most effective way to teach a child” and that he wants public schools to “take that job seriously,” according to Chalkbeat.
The proposed vouchers resemble an embattled program in Arizona introduced by Republican Governor Doug Ducey, which uses federal COVID-19 aid money to fund vouchers for families whose schools move to virtual learning due to the pandemic.
- A. Thomas
Puerto Rican Community Saves Montessori Public School Shuttered by Keleher (Jan. 25)
The Montessori Alejandro Tapia and Rivera School in Lajas, one of the many public schools in Puerto Rico shuttered in 2018 under former Secretary of Education Julia Keleher, has won authorization from the island’s Department of Education to reopen, reported Primera Hora.
According to a 2021 article in El Nuevo Dia, supporters of the school, which focuses on marine sciences, had raised money through donations and repaired the facilities in order to enroll students again, even though the Department of Education had not approved a plan to reopen the school. After a visit from the Department of Education, officials informed the school community that the students would be transferred to Escuela Urbana, also in Lajas, a decision which the school community resisted, reported Primera Hora.
However, Secretary of Education Eliezer Ramos Parés told Primera Hora that his department has since reversed course and said that it will be supporting the community and investing in the school’s infrastructure. The school’s spokesperson for the Committee of Parents and Community told Primera Hora that the collective will of the parents was key to reopening the school.
- G. García de la Noceda