Most school vouchers in Arizona are used by middle- and upper-class families because:
- Most private schools have tuition that is higher than what the voucher pays, and low-income families cannot afford the difference.
- Most good private schools are located in more affluent areas, making it harder to get children from low-income neighborhoods to school.
- Most private schools do not include school buses or other transportation for students, and vouchers typically do not include transportation expenses. Even if you can use voucher money for transportation, low-income families still won’t benefit because the total amount of the voucher is usually less than the cost of private school tuition, so there is not enough to cover transportation costs too.
- Most private school tuition does not include any meals, whereas public schools may include free breakfast, lunch and snacks, so food is another added cost that the poorest families cannot afford.
- Some private schools require school uniforms, another added cost.
If Arizona really wants school choice for all, they need to address these issues.
ProPublica’s excellent article, In a State With School Vouchers for All, Low-Income Families Aren’t Choosing to Use Them, covers the financial issues in greater depth and gives case studies
The idea of “school choice” funded with public vouchers seems like a good idea, but the outcome may increase economic segregation, as the more well-off are encouraged to leave the public system rather than fight to improve their local public schools. Vouchers can increase racial and cultural segregation as well when certain groups tend to have lower economic status, which is often due to historical causes. When forced school desegregation, especially using busing, was happening in the 1960’s, many who could afford to send their children to private schools did so. Vouchers support this move.
Don’t get me wrong: I have the highest regard for well-designed, well-run private education (including homeschooling). Quality education for everyone is a worthy goal. And schools are not the only place where quality learning happens.
I would like to see a shorter school day so that teachers have more time to plan excellent learning activities and devote extra time to those students who are struggling right when they need it, so that they can catch up, learn to work through any emotional issues and be motivated by success. Finland does this well.
If the school environment truly supported each student, many of the problems we see with public schools today would disappear. If education was free and available–but not compulsive and coercive–and students as well as families had maximum choice in what to learn when, life would be better for all of us, including for new school graduates, who would have studied what most prepared them for what they wanted to do next in their lives.
But back to the topic of school vouchers. Vouchers are good for some and bad for others, depending upon how they are implemented and other resources available to families. If one important goal is to support school choice for low-income families, then the Arizona voucher system is failing. It the objective is to keep lower-income students away from higher-income students, then it is succeeding. If the goal is to keep schools segregated, then Arizona school vouchers are doing their job. In my view, the vouchers are failing to improve education where educational improvement is needed most.
What gives me hope is that the failure of vouchers to be viable for some families is motivating those families to work together to improve the only schools they can send their children to–the public ones.