According To The GAO, More Vouchers Mean More Problems
This sectarian store-front private school in Washington, D.C., has received tax support through a federal voucher plan.
This week, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, an independent agency that works for Congress and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer money, released a new report on private school voucher programs. The report found that as private school voucher programs continue to spread throughout the states, taxpayers are contributing more and more money each year to programs that are plagued with problems.
What is especially troubling is that students with disabilities and low-income students are the most likely to suffer as a result. The report looked at state voucher programs across the country, focusing on whether students with disabilities and from low-income families are receiving the proper federal services. It found that students who are entitled to receive services funded by federal IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act) and Title I (funds for students from low-income areas) dollars, often did not receive those services because they opted to use a private school voucher.
In some instances, the GAO found that private schools don’t provide the necessary services because they are simply uninformed and confused about what types of services they are required to provide; in other cases, some private voucher schools have actually opted out of providing federally funded services simply because they said it would be too much of an administrative headache.
However, that’s not all the report found. Here are some of the GAO report’s other findings:
Private voucher schools discriminate in admitting students. Private schools in all but four voucher programs across the country can discriminate in the admission of students based on a variety of factors, such as disciplinary history, academic achievement, and religious affiliation.
The money used to fund voucher programs can come directly from the public school funding stream. For example, one-third of the funding for Milwaukee’s voucher program came from state funds that would have otherwise directly funded the public school district for the 2014-15 school year.
Even with vouchers, many students can’t afford to attend private schools. Thirteen out of 22 voucher programs surveyed do not place a cap on private school tuition, meaning that a voucher may not cover the actual cost of attending private schools in the state.
Private voucher schools do not necessarily provide better education. Private voucher schools can teach religious doctrine and employ teachers without the same minimum education requirements that teachers in the public schools must have, such as bachelor’s degrees.
Private school voucher programs can harm public school students. The more students that use vouchers to attend private schools, the more school districts must disperse limited federal IDEA and Title I funds throughout the district, meaning that public schools cannot always provide all the services they would like.
The GAO has long been a watchdog of private school voucher programs. It has repeatedly chronicled the shortcomings of the Washington, D.C., private school voucher program, finding it to be lacking accountability at all levels of its administration.
In the end, this GAO report reaffirmed what we knew already – voucher programs continue to use taxpayer dollars to fund programs that are ineffective at best, and actually harmful to students at worst.According To The GAO, More Vouchers Mean More Problems | Americans United:
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