Voucher advocates would have us believe that diverting government money to private schools will give children choices they don’t currently have, but the data proves otherwise.
In state after state that has implemented private school voucher programs, the result has been the same: The vouchers have gone overwhelmingly to parents who already sent their children to private schools and had the means to pay the tuition. This is no accident. Private schools routinely limit the “choices” that privatizers promise in their misleading propaganda:
· Refusal of admission – Private schools select the children they want to serve, unlike public schools which are open to all.
· Raising tuition fees – Private schools often raise tuition fees well above what the vouchers cover, knowing that parents of children already enrolled can afford to pay them.
· no transportation – denying transportation services to students automatically excludes the “choice” for children with lesser privileges
Denial of services – most private schools do not provide services such as interventions for low-performing students, special education, remedial programs, etc.
In fact, the Mississippi Association of Private Schools has made it clear that it strongly prefers that the state fund them through tuition tax credits rather than voucher payments. Not only do tax credits allow private schools to avoid any public scrutiny over the quality of their education or the use of their funds, they also relieve them of any pressure to accept new voucher recipients. And tax credits themselves limit choice because they benefit those who already pay tuition.
This should come as no surprise. The entire voucher system was designed to benefit private schools. Not students, not parents, not taxpayers—and certainly not the public good. This “school choice” lie is one of the latest variations on the privatizers’ message, which has evolved over three decades while they failed to convince lawmakers to abandon public schools in favor of unaccountable private schools.
Instead, Mississippi lawmakers recommitted themselves to public education, fully adopting the public school funding formula for the first time in 16 years. Students and teachers have exceeded expectations academically, meeting national averages in fourth-grade reading and math proficiency. Our fourth-graders rank 21st in the nation in reading and 33rd in math.
Low-income children in Mississippi rank second in reading and third in math compared to low-income children in other states.
Of 138 traditional public school districts, 96% are rated C or better and 71% are rated A or B.
Mississippi’s public schools deliver impressive results, while research in states with voucher programs shows that private school voucher programs consistently deliver abysmal academic results (children fall behind academically when they move from public to private schools and improve academically when they move from private to public schools). It’s clear that diverting public funds to unaccountable private schools under the guise of “freedom of choice” is a bad deal for Mississippi taxpayers. Lawmakers should continue to invest in what has been proven to deliver excellent returns: strong public schools and solid preschool programs that provide all students with a path to reach their potential.
Nancy Loome is executive director of The Parents’ Campaign (msparentscampaign.org) and president of The Parents’ Campaign Research & Education Fund (tpcref.org).
