Tag Archives: Indiana Vouchers

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Vouchers: A Lesson from Indiana

As Governor Bill Lee’s voucher legislation begins the legislative process this week with a hearing in a House Education subcommittee, this information from Indiana offers a word of caution. The voucher program in Indiana expanded rapidly and now results in a $154 million decrease in state funds available for public schools.

Here’s more:


Executive Summary
Growth in Indiana’s budget for public school personnel has not kept up with growth in its general fund or even inflation. Specifically, the current budget for public school personnel is almost $300M behind the 2009-10 budget when inflation is taken into account.


Vouchers are also funded from the budget for public school personnel. In 2018-2019, over $150M of this budget was utilized to fund Vouchers — with very little accountability.


The girls and boys attending Indiana’s public schools are currently educated utilizing a budget that is lagging by $450M.


Indiana’s General Fund (i.e., monies legislators control)


The Consumer Price Index (inflation rate) has grown by 16.71%
The Indiana General Fund has grown by 20.96%
K-12 Tuition Support Budget has grown by only 12.12%
Tuition Support funds nearly all personnel working in public schools
Considering inflation, but momentarily ignoring the impact of Vouchers, the Tuition Support Budget is $295,031,840 behind 2010 funding for the current school year


How Vouchers Work


Depending on family income, a qualifying child can receive a Voucher worth up to 90% of their local public school’s per student funding
Nearly 60% of voucher recipients have never attended a public school, but are now an additional cost taken from the Tuition Support Budget
Of the remaining 40%, the majority attended public schools for only one year before the Voucher program, but not the same year
The average public school student receives a little less than $6000, the average Voucher student receives $4258
The Voucher money is not taken from the local school, it is taken out of the Tuition Support Budget, (there is not a simple transfer of funds between the two schools) thereby decreasing the dollars for all public schools


Number of students’ educations funded by the tuition support budget


Public school enrollment during 2009-2019 is volatile, ranging from an increase of 3523 students in 2017-18 to a decrease of 4877 students in 2011-12
From 2010 to 2017, the US Census Bureau projects Indiana has lost 20,806 school-aged children. In that same period of time Indiana’s public and charter schools’ enrollment has only dropped by 6,158 from 1,036,839 students to 1,030,681 students.
There were 36,328 voucher requests in 2018-19
The 36,328 vouchers in 2018-19 result in a 3.41% increase in students to be funded this year


Impact on the amount of money allocated per student by Indiana


The Voucher Program decreases funding for all public school students
In 2009-10, the Tuition Support Budget allocation divided by enrolled public school students was $6,192
In 2018-19, the Tuition Support Budget allocation divided by only the enrolled public school students would be $6998, which is a 13% increase from 2009-10. However, the addition of Voucher students cut the average to $6,826 – only a 10.25% increase while the rate of inflation was 16.71%
This results in approximately $154 million taxpayer dollars spent to fund vouchers that could have been utilized for the benefit of girls and boys attending public school


Fiduciary Oversight


There is no fiduciary oversight by the state of the Voucher money
There are no requirements that keep Voucher taxpayer dollars from being used to enable the receiving organization to redirect its existing money for non-education purposes

Not only are vouchers costing Indiana taxpayers a lot of money, they simply aren’t getting results for kids.

Tennessee lawmakers would be wise to look at the impact of vouchers in other states. They’ll see a very expensive program that doesn’t get results.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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The Voucher School District

This week, Education Committees in the House and Senate will consider a number of bills creating school vouchers in Tennessee. Proponents are pushing the bills even as growing evidence suggests vouchers fail kids.

So, what would happen if Tennessee started a voucher program, even a small-scale one, this year?

One state with a record on this is Indiana. Vouchers started there back in 2011 in a relatively small program with fairly strict eligibility requirements. At the time the vouchers were created, then-Governor Mitch Daniels said:

Back in 2011, Daniels spoke to a conservative think tank a few months after he signed the program into law. At that speech, he said he didn’t expect this to become a big problem.

“It is not likely to be a very large phenomenon in Indiana,” he said “I think it will be exercised by a meaningful but not an enormous number of our students.”

Initially, vouchers were only to serve some 7500 students.

Fast forward five years, and the program has expanded exponentially, serving more than 30,000 students — 3 percent of the state’s student population.

The qualifications have changed, too. Now, a student doesn’t even have to have attended a public school to qualify for a voucher. Reports suggest this provision means Indiana is spending some $54 million supporting private schools — money that would not have been spent without the voucher program:

A report on the program released by the Department of Education shows the program costs $54 million.

“If the idea behind a voucher program is we’re going to have the money follow the student, if the student didn’t start in a public school, the money isn’t following them from a public school, it’s just appearing from another budget,” [Researcher Molly] Stewart said. “And we’re not exactly sure where that’s coming from.”

Vouchers, then, create $54 million in new expenditures — an education funding deficit — in Indiana.

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To put that state’s program growth into perspective, 3 percent of Tennessee’s student population would be 29,936. The Tennessee voucher district would be the 8th largest district in the state, just larger than Sumner County and slightly smaller than Montgomery County. And, if our experience is at all like Indiana’s, about half of those students will never have attended a public school.

Nearly 15,000 students who never attended public school suddenly receiving vouchers would mean a state cost of $98 million. That’s $98 million in new money. Of course, those funds would either be new money (which is not currently contemplated) or would take from the state’s BEP allocations in the districts where the students receive the vouchers.

Let’s look at Davidson County as an example. If three percent of the student population there took vouchers, and half of those were students who had never attended a public school, the loss to the district would be a minimum of $8.4 million.

This means local governments would be stuck picking up the tab to support private schools. The alternative would be a dedicated state fund to support the voucher school district. That’s a total cost of around $200 million, half of that new money.

Should taxpayers be asked to invest $100 million in a program that gets negative results? Studies in Indiana, Ohio, and Louisiana all indicate that vouchers have a negative impact on student academic outcomes.

Kevin Carey noted recently that even a study by the Fordham Institute showed negative results for vouchers:

In June, a third voucher study was released by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank and proponent of school choice. The study, which was financed by the pro-voucher Walton Family Foundation, focused on a large voucher program in Ohio. “Students who use vouchers to attend private schools have fared worse academically compared to their closely matched peers attending public schools,” the researchers found. Once again, results were worse in math.

This week, we may hear that any new voucher program will start small and will only serve a fraction of our state’s students. Even if that’s true, the cost to taxpayers at the state and local level will be significant. Then, there’s the fact that studies are emerging showing vouchers just don’t work. Why spend more to get less?

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport