Report: Cost of school vouchers jumps from $16M to $40M
The cost of Indiana’s private school voucher program jumped from $16 million to $40 million during the past school year, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Department of Education.
Critics of the voucher program say the report proves that subsidizing private education is costly and unsustainable. But supporters say the new figure is misleading.
At issue are publicly funded vouchers that families who meet certain income requirements can use to send students to private schools.
More than 29,100 students received vouchers during the recently completed academic year, up from about 19,800 the year before. Those numbers make Indiana’s program one of the largest in the nation.
Supporters of the voucher program have argued that such an expansion would save the state money because vouchers only provide 50 percent to 90 percent of the funding a traditional public school would receive on behalf of a student. Parents pick up the rest.
The assumption has been that many public school students would move to private schools, saving the state money. But much of the increased participation came from students who have never attended a traditional public school.
In fact, for the first time since the voucher program began, more than half of those receiving vouchers have never set foot in a public school, according to the report. Over the past year, the number of voucher recipients who have never attended an Indiana public school nearly doubled, from 7,779 to 14,700.
As a result, the Department of Education, led by Democrat Glenda Ritz, estimated the increase in vouchers actually cost the state more money.
Daniel Altman, a spokesman for Ritz, defended the calculation, noting that it was Republicans — generally supporters of school choice — who came up with the formula used by the department.
Voucher opponents seized on the results Tuesday.
“It’s a much larger price tag than what supporters said it would be,” said Rep. Terry Goodin, a Democrat who is also superintendent of Crothersville Community Schools. “As we move forward it’s going to be a real burden on our state.”
But school choice advocates say the department’s calculation is deeply flawed because no one knows how many voucher students would have attended public schools if the vouchers were not available. Yet, the study assumes voucher recipients who haven’t attended public school would have chosen private education even without the voucher.
In reality, no more than 20 percent of those students would have elected private Report: Cost of school vouchers jumps from $16M to $40M: