On May 17, 2023, the North Carolina Assembly passed House Bill 823, enthusiastically called Choose your School, Choose your Future. The bill expanded the state’s K-12 school voucher program, originally enacted in 2013 to assist low-income families. The Opportunity Scholarship, as the North Carolina voucher program is called, now grants vouchers to all North Carolina families regardless of income. Grants are on a sliding scale determined by family income, with amounts varying between $3,360 and $7,468 per child per year.
Legislators allocated $354.5 million for the Opportunity Scholarship program’s reserve fund for the 2024-2025 school year, and $416 million for the 2025-2026 year.
Lawmakers included HB-823 in the state’s $30 billion very much delayed and anticipated budget, which Governor Roy Cooper allowed to become law without his signature in September.
This program has received accolades as well as criticism.
Sadly, many traditional public schools are of poor quality and lately mired in controversy regarding race, gender, and sexuality. Children should not be stuck in such schools. The Opportunity Scholarship program is a godsend to lower-income families who cannot afford or who can barely afford private, including religious, schools.
However, back in May 2023, WFAE opinion columnist Tommy Tomlinson came up with an interesting description of the newly-overhauled North Carolina voucher program: “Robin Hood in reverse.” He said,
“At some point, I have a certain grudging respect for the dedication some people have to playing Robin Hood in reverse — taking money from regular folks and handing it to the rich. Their latest maneuver here in North Carolina is a move to provide taxpayer-funded vouchers to any child in the state who wants to go to private school …
Kids from families with modest incomes have been eligible for similar vouchers here for the past 10 years. That, to me, actually makes some sense. It provides an escape route for a kid stuck in a failing school.“
Wealthy families, whose children already attend the “ritziest schools in town” can argue that given the poor quality of public schools they are forced to pay both private school tuition and taxes that support public schools. Vouchers would help level their playing field. However, let us not forget that the working poor also pay taxes, some of which will help pay for school vouchers their wealthy neighbors receive.
Unfortunately, “Robin Hood in reverse” is not the only problem with universal school vouchers.
A worrisome possibility is a significant tuition increase.
North Carolina News & Observer education columnist T. Keung Hui noted in his excellent report of February 15, 2024, that some private schools have already announced tuition increases.
“Private schools across the state are raising tuition and sending information to families about applying for Opportunity Scholarships. How much of the tuition increase is due to inflation or to take advantage of additional voucher funding is unclear. … The tuition rate increases for some schools across the state is more than 10%, which is well above the rate of inflation.”
People who attended college in the late 1980s might recall the shock wave of sudden tuition increases. Reasonably affordable four-year colleges became voracious, pushing students into quagmires of student loan debt. 1987 to 2010 witnessed a 106% increase in college tuition, according to a Mises Institute report dated November 30, 2021.
Coincidentally, the years 1980 – 2010 also saw expansion of college student loans guaranteed by the Federal government. William Bennett, President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Education, provided in 1987 his view for the college tuition increases he witnessed. Bennett’s assessment — what became known as the Bennett Hypothesis — was discussed in Science Direct, December, 2019
“Increases in financial aid in recent years have enabled colleges and universities blithely to raise their tuitions, confident that Federal loan subsidies would help cushion the increase.”
Scholars have debated the Bennett Hypothesis ever since it was first presented. But even when pitted against other possible reasons for substantial tuition surges — increase in attendance without concomitant growth in institutions, inflation, excessive regulation — the Bennett Hypothesis survives common sense. Is there a valid argument against the view that everybody likes money, and if it is available, most individuals and institutions will take it? Or a valid argument against expecting substantial expansion in school vouchers to have negative effects like those associated with college student loans?
Families should also be concerned about class sizes.
Mr. Hui of the News & Observer indicated an estimated 60% increase in students getting vouchers. Recipients that are already attending private schools will not affect class sizes, but students crossing over from public schools might. Chances are private schools will not rush to expand their facilities to accommodate the crossover population, which could result in increased class sizes.
Vouchers might not be operating on a level playing field.
Lower-income families and their advocates should ask themselves whether universal school voucher programs operate on a level playing field.
By way of comparison: Progressive advocates for poor and minorities often oppose voter ID requirements, citing that poor and minority voters face greater difficulties obtaining IDs. Would the same difficulties apply to obtaining school vouchers? Might more affluent, more educated families possessing greater resources hold advantages over the less fortunate?
Hopefully, in the interest of fairness, the priorities in receiving vouchers contained in HB-823 will lower any advantages held by wealthier families. Families whose children were voucher recipients prior to HB-823 (when there were income limits) will enter a voucher lottery first, followed by lower-income applicants; the more affluent applicants will enter the lottery last to receive what funds are left in the year’s allocation.
Lastly, do the wealthy really need vouchers?
The common-sense answer is clearly “No.” The title of House Bill 823 — Choose your School, Choose your Future – although catchy, is disingenuously applicable only to lower-income families. It is difficult to imagine circumstances in which wealthy families need vouchers to choose which ritzy school is best for their children.
Indeed, it is unfair that families with children who attend private schools pay both tuition and taxes that support public schools. However, universal school vouchers possess an unfortunate aura of benefits for the rich.
Conceivably a better idea might be to pass legislation absolving parents with K-12 children in private schools from paying taxes that support public schools, limiting vouchers to very low-income families living in poor-performing school districts, and improving the performance and cost effectiveness of public schools by practicing the good old focus on “reading, writing, and arithmetic.”
Picture: The beautiful Groton School in Groton, MA. Founded in 1884. Educating 380 students, grades 8-12.
Just Vote No 