Want to See Seattle Schools Really Suffer? Allow School Vouchers to Happen
I have warned you about the growing numbers of states that have passed school voucher laws. There is a bill coming to the Legislature for school vouchers. Here's the story from the Tri-Cities:
Washington state Rep. Travis Couture, R-Allyn, has introduced legislation to create scholarships for students via Education Savings Accounts, commonly called ESAs.
House Bill 1140, co-sponsored by Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, would specifically fund ESAs for low-income students, special needs families and students trapped in failing schools.
“We’ve got a huge problem, and it’s not like having ESAs or other choices will solve that overnight, but we need to have competition in the system,” Couture noted.
That last category is so vague you could drive a Mack truck through it. As for "special-needs" students, I'd have to see more specifics to understand exactly who Rep. Courture means. And competition? We see how our healthcare system has benefited from competition.
According to a news release emailed to The Center Square, “The funds would be available via a state-issued debit card, with oversight capability. The money would have to be spent on education, including tuition, fees, textbooks, tutoring, therapies and more.”
I'm in Arizona and we were promised there would be oversight and guess what? It practically doesn't exist. It is completely ridiculous to send out public dollars willy-nilly and not care about the outcomes.
And where would the money come from?
"The Legislature could decide to appropriate funding for ESAs, but even if they did not allocate any money for it, we’ve established a B&O [business and occupation] tax credit where business owners can decide to contribute a portion of their B&O tax to the general fund or to ESA’s,” Couture said.
Did I mention how the universal school voucher program in Arizona is hurting the state budget? Yup.
It is fairly unlikely for Washington State to get vouchers anytime soon but the push is on. What's interesting is that the one big state that can't get a law passed is Texas. Yes, I know, they have Greg Abbott for governor and their legislature is very red.
Texas has 133 rural counties which is just over 50% of all Texas counties. Washington State has 39 counties; 30 of them are rural but those counties only make up just over 19% of the state population. For Texas, their rural counties make up just 15% of their population.
Why do I bring this up? Because the big reason that Abbott can't get his voucher bill through is because of the legislators in those rural counties who know - for a fact - that their students, especially low-income students, live in places with zero private schools and probably near zero charter schools.
If you are selling a bill on the promise it will help low-income students, it better be doing that. And, those rural legislators know that the voucher system will weaken their public schools. So it's no sale there.
If you want to advocate for or against a bill, this is the state legislature's page with links to email or message your representative, note your position for the record ahead of a committee hearing (you'll hear this referred to as "signing in pro" or "signing in con"), submit written testimony to a committee, or testify in a committee hearing either in person or via Zoom.
An even bigger threat is a federal law for vouchers via the "Educational Choice for Children Act of 2024." From the Curmudguacation blog by Peter Greene:
ECCA proposes an education savings account voucher funded with tax credits. ESAs are super-vouchers that simply hand parents a stack of money and tell them to go spend it on education-flavored stuff. ESAs are in place in many states, and they have provided some serious oversight problems; State-level ESAs have been used for surfboards, televisions, theme park tickets, cosmetics, clothes, horseback riding lessons, and $1 million on Lego sets.
ECCA vouchers would be funded by contributions from wealthy folks who are looking for a tax shelter and investment opportunity (more about that in a moment) funneled through a Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO). The SGOs take the money, wrap it in a bow, and hand it over as vouchers to families.
Greene points out the lack of oversight and accountability or even any rules.
There is no process or set of requirements, no vetting for qualifications or competence, for SGOs or the education vendors who eventually receive the taxpayer-funded vouchers. By the rules of the bill, pretty much anyone can play and collect voucher funds or the 10% share that SGOs get to keep. There are no education-related guardrails in this bill at all, and it doesn't even specify the size of the vouchers. It's almost as if it were mainly about something other than education. Ka-ching.
But kicking money into the federal voucher program gets you 100% tax credit. Give a dollar, take a dollar credit. And you can do this for up to 10% of your income, which is the sweetest tax shelter that the feds offer anywhere in the tax code.
You may want to contact your Congressperson and tell them you do not support HB 9642, the Betsy DeVos Tax Shelter Act, because this bill unfortunately has many friends in DC.
I did listen in to Seattle Channel's interview with Senator Jamie Pedersen, Senator Rebecca Saldana and Representative Joe Fitzgibbon. The discussion was largely around other issues but Fitzgibbon did include education in as a topic priority and said if the top issues got addressed, he would consider that legislative session a success. Fingers crossed that SPS gets a big bump in funding.
Comments
Lego Brick
At a broader level, I have to ask, what outcomes are current strategies and tactics likely to achieve? The tactics include A) minimal homework in middle school because it isn't considered equitable, as some families can't / won't support their kids doing homework B) no acceleration of math, specifically no Algebra until 9th grade for any student, C) a half year of PE and a half year of Art or Music is the standard for all 6th grade students - never mind that some kids desperately need to move around or be creative, the district mandate is that all kids need to take Spanish in 6th, D) math curriculum that has not proven effective anywhere it is tried , but is approved for equity purposes E) placement of severely behaviorally challenged kids into general classrooms without sufficient hours of support staff being available to keep them from disrupting the learning of other children , and on and on and on.
At a higher level, here are some realities in Highline.1. the school board performance goals are only looking at growth in test scores of a year. They don't look at percent meeting grade level. The numbers are so bad, the administration doesn't want to report on it. Three board members agree with this "scorecard." (One is Tidholm, applicant for the 34th Dem seat.) So, if an 8th grade student is reading at a third grade level at the start of the year, and advances to 4th grade during 8th, then the district considers this "success" because they met the metric of advancing a year.
2. At a higher level, there was a school in Auburn, Gildo Rey, that had remarkable math outcomes. As reported in the Seattle Times, they used direct instruction. Some number of years ago, they switched to different approaches and the scores have significantly dropped.
3. I recently wrote some articles for Burien.news about tutoring support. One was on the "free" services, such as at libraries. The other was on paid support. As a part of that , I visited Kumon. I never wanted outside tutoring for my kids, I did not like the idea of having one more thing to jam into their schedule. But the approaches Kumon uses, including realistic starting points as well as curriculum that are sound, are much, much better than anything Highline is doing. In 9th grade middle year IB math, they are putting everyone into the same room. The kids who are ready for faster work get maybe 5 minutes of instruction from the teacher. They are essentially on their own - though the few in a high poverty district who have parents with a college degree can get some extra support from the parents.
So, what to do? If parents could get $500 or $1000 per year that would pay for Kumon, would they be better off? I think yes. Could Kumon serve everyone who wanted help? That's harder to say. I think very few parents would actually do anything for a variety of reasons.
The frustration is accountability. BUt honestly, Highline budgets and school budgets in general are very hard to understand. I do not see how the district can be spending $22K per child. Have 25 kids in a class, x $22K, and you get $550,000 of revenue. The full cost of salary and benefits for a teacher might be one third of that. Some money goes to pay for specialists, such as PE and music. But not all that much. So where is the rest of the money going? Tech costs are not at all communicated. But this year, when the district was hacked and all tech was shut down because of the potential for problems, a lot of people actually said they liked less or no tech better.
This is turning into quite a rant. Bottom line is the status quo is not working and I don't see any indication of anything going on that is going to change that dynamic. So in that sense, I'm open to alternatives.
SPS likes to put out pie charts that practically shout - SEE? THIS IS WHERE IT ALL GOES. Except that the slices in the pie are never clearly explained.
What Stuart left out is the overhead it takes to run a school; it's not just teacher salary costs (although salaries are the biggest costs).
I truly hope the district loses the BEX levy because they aren't listening. SPS is spending too much on tech, too much on consultants and now, the final version of the Moss Adams review of SOFG (that's basically what it is), says they need to hire even MORE Central Office staff.
It's really nervy to ask for more money for some budget gap when they continue to find new ways to spend money.
Pay for Kumon or Legos? Apparently neither of you understand what the voucher system is. It is to pay for either homeschooling (hence the Legos and maybe Kumon) or private school. Parents across the board cannot ask for funds for one specific item or service.
Yes, there's overhead. Yes, administration, curriculum, heating, bus, nurses, specialists for PE, art and music, supplies, insurance, meals, field trips and more all cost money and require some budget. But how much? Another way to look at things: there is a difference of some $2000 between some schools in Highline that all have a great deal in common: high poverty, high absenteeism, comparable numbers of students bused, of ELL and more. How is it that one school gets 10% more than another? These budgets are very mysterious. So when the word is "spend more" or "don't allow the state to pay for tutoring because that will gut the educational opportunities" I have to ask where is the money going, and when spending has gone up so much, what has it accomplished? I did not want to pay for tutoring for my kids, it really didn't seem right, but in hindsight, I wish I had.
That's all
Yes. Of course we all understand that a voucher isn’t a parental Amazon card. But the article complained specifically about pretty reasonable uses of funds. So what? Let’s face it . There’s 0 accountability in schools for anyone or anything. Not results, not safety, not use of funds. Nothing. It’s already “faith based”. Faith in bureaucracy. Worrying about voucher accountability is a counterbalance.
L.B.
vote yes