‘Neovouchers’: A primer on private school tax credits
Some people, not surprisingly, weren’t thrilled with my post titled “Welfare for the rich? Private school tax credit programs expanding.” Here Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center, housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, looks at the criticism and gives us a primer on private school tax credit programs, which he calls “neovouchers.” He’s the author of the 2008 book “NeoVouchers: The Emergence of Tuition Tax Credits for Private Schooling.”By Kevin Welner
In a March 1st statement on the Hoover Institution’s “Education Next” blog, Jason Bedrick of the Cato Institute offers his conclusion that policies he calls “scholarship tax credit (STC) programs” primarily benefit lower-income families. Because so little evidence exists, Mr. Bedrick avoids making many specific claims about the actual distribution of benefits. But he does make some broad claims that I think are worth engaging.
As a policy matter, there are many issues worth considering. There are, for instance, the basic questions applicable to all voucher and voucher-like policies concerning outcomes for students offered vouchers, competition effects, constitutional establishment clause (separate of church and state) issues, philosophical issues about liberty and choice, and societal issues
