House Bill 1003 Private School Vouchers

Efforts are underway to make a bad bill better.

House Bill 1003 is a bad bill.  The Governor likes it and State Superintendent Bennett likes it, but it is still a bad bill.

For public education, it is the worst bill of our generation. 

It would shatter the separation between public schools and religious schools. 

It would not require private schools receiving public money for tuition to accept disabled students.  They could reject or expel any student they wish, students who would then go back to public schools.  If students arrive at the door of a public school after the September count date, the public school would accept them because their mission is to teach all students, but they will get no money for that student.  The bill has no provisions for the private school to return the money for a student they expelled.

I could go on.  It would set up under-the-table recruiting wars between public and private school athletic programs over prized athletes who would qualify for a private school voucher at state expense.

For the sake of the million plus public school students whose schools would be harmed by HB 1003, this bill should die.  Unfortunately, it has the resolute support of the Governor and the State Superintendent.

To think that it could die with this kind of powerful support is hard to imagine, so it is useful to think of ways it could be shrunk in case the power of the Governor forces it through.  That is what is going on with the proposed Republican amendments detailed below.  They are being offered to sell a bad idea to a questioning caucus.  I didn’t want to discuss the amendments below without making my position clear that no amendment could make HB 1003 acceptable in the last analysis.  It should die.  It should not be part of a negotiated deal to end the Democrat walkout unless the deal is to let it die, which seems unlikely.

Every legislator likes to tell the people back home that they support the local public schools and they are looking out for them in the Statehouse.  They can even claim in a tough budget year that a poor budget for the public schools is the best they could do because there is no money.

They cannot claim, however, that a vote for private school vouchers is a vote to “support the local public schools” or to “look out for the public schools in the Statehouse.”  A vote for vouchers is a vote to undermine and eventually destroy the very concept of public education, wherein the entire community comes together behind a community school board to educate the children of the community in the best way possible.  A vote for vouchers is giving up on public schools.  A vote for vouchers is a hostile vote against public schools.  It cannot be disguised.   That is why so many legislators have had concerns about the voucher bill.  Public school advocates are challenging them in no uncertain terms.

And well they should.

The voucher battle is a war of choice against public education.  It wouldn’t have to be fought this year.   It wouldn’t have to be fought at all.

Speaker Bosma issued a statement in response to the huge rally on Thursday, March 10^th, saying that no one could claim his education program would destroy public education.  My response is that diverting 20,000 students from public to private schools under HB 1003 and turning 212 schools over to “for-profit” management companies under HB 1479 is a giant step toward the destruction of public schools. 

A strong voice against the voucher bill was raised last week when Sen. Brent Steele, Republican Senator from Bedford and an attorney, sent a letter to every member of the General Assembly explaining his opposition to the voucher bill.  He said that groups like the Westboro Baptist Church, the group that recently won the Supreme Court decision allowing them to protest loudly at military funerals, would end up getting school vouchers for religious schools and that should not happen.

Since so many legislators have been uncomfortable with the voucher bill, the Republican leaders pushing the bill have introduced amendments.  Rep. Behning, chair of the education committee, has authored several amendments, and others in the caucus have also participated.  I count eight concepts among the several Republican amendments that have been filed.

Republican Amendments Filed for House Bill 1003 – School Vouchers:  Eight Proposed Ideas

Amendments numbered 1 through 45 have been filed by Democrats.  Amendments 46 through 55 have been filed by Republicans and represent eight general concepts.  Obviously the Republican amendments have a stronger chance of being added to the bill, so here are the eight ideas I have found in the ten amendments:

1)      Change eligibility for tax credit scholarships and voucher scholarships to $61,000, instead of $81,000.

Comment:  We know that 45% of all students would be eligible for the 90% voucher given to families of four making $40,000, because that is the statewide Free or Reduced lunch total.  A good guess is that another 20% of all students would qualify under the $61,000 limit.  That makes approximately 2/3 of all students eligible for a voucher, even after the amendment.

2)      Exclude kindergarten students from being eligible for a voucher in the first grade.  Students must be enrolled for at least two semesters in grades 1-12 before they are eligible for a voucher.

3)      Cap private school vouchers at 7,500 in 2011-12 and at 15,000 in 2012-13 and appoint the IDOE to “establish the standards used to allocate choice scholarships among eligible students.”  In other words, a random draw is not required. 

Comment: This is the latest amendment, filed yesterday on March 14^th.  It is apparently filed in   the belief that a smaller program will be more attractive and brings to mind the “camel’s nose under the tent” strategy.

4)      An eligible school must hold a random drawing when applicants who meet the requirements for admission exceed the number of spaces available.

5)      Limit vouchers to students attending a public school in either of the two lowest categories of PL 221.

Comment:  That currently means 75% of all high schools, 24% of middle schools, and 11% of elementary schools.

6)      Require both parent and schools to endorse the voucher. 

7)      Clarify that an individual may only have one voucher scholarship.  Transfers must pay tuition for the new school.  The voucher dollars remain with the first school.

8)      Establish tax credits for contributions to public school foundations, mirroring tax credits for scholarship granting organizations in percentage (50% rising to 80%) and limits ($2.5 million rising to $12.5 million).  Then a subsequent amendment (#54) limits tax credits to public school foundations to 25% of the original private school tax credit fund.

Comment:  This proposal mirrors Sen. Simpson’s bill in the Senate which would independently establish a tax credit program for public school foundations.

Additional Amendment Ideas to House Bill 1003

Here are a few more amendments that I would recommend:

1)      Currently, the Scholarship Granting Organization must distribute at least 90% of the total amount of contributions as school scholarships to eligible students.  Amend this to 100%.

Rationale:  The proposed $12.5 million tax credit program would mean scholarship groups have raised $25 million in donations based on the current 50% tax credit.  Currently, 90% must be given to scholarships, or $22.5 million.  The scholarship group can keep $2.5 million.  This is a hefty profit; some would call it a windfall.  It constitutes one of the few jobs programs proposed in this session.  Amending the law to 100% would move $2.5 million from overhead and profit to student scholarships.  Scholarship groups should get administrative overhead funding through other donations.

2)      Currently, an August 1^st report is required from Scholarship Granting Organizations stating how much was raised in the previous fiscal year (through June 30^th) and how much was distributed in scholarships.  Amend the law to clarify that August 1^st is the deadline to show that 90% of donations have gone out in scholarships.

Rationale:  When the Indiana Coalition for Public Education pointed out in a press conference that the scholarship groups did not distribute 90% of the donations according to the August 1^st report, the groups claimed that August 1^st was not the deadline for distributing the scholarship money.  The current law, however, only calls for one report to the state, and it is the August 1^st report.  The law needs to be clarified and strengthened to remove any ambiguity about when the scholarship groups must meet the 90% requirement.  In the first report on August 1^st, 2010, the scholarship groups showed that only 58% of the donations for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2010 had been distributed as scholarships.

As you talk with legislators to try to stop the voucher bill, the information about the filed amendments will be important in your discussions.  They are efforts to make a bad bill better, but the concept of the bill is still fatally flawed.  Public dollars should stay with public schools.