DC School Vouchers Still Miss the Mark

The state-run monopoly on primary and secondary education has driven Washington, DC’s school system to notorious lows in facilities and educational achievements. This is despite the fact that children in the District enjoy the highest per pupil spending rates in any district in the United States. Given this, it is no surprise that parents have opted for a no-cost option of moving their children to public charter schools.

In January of 2004, the President signed into law the D.C Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provides up to $7,500 for low-income families to pay for private school tuition, fees, and transportation. In addition, the Act provides the District of Columbia’s Public Schools (DCPS) with $13 million for charter schools to upgrade their facilities and improve their educational programs. In a recent report released by the CATO Institute, it was found that the DC voucher program has saved the school system nearly $8 million. This is because these students are no longer enrolled in the DCPS and the federal government is absorbing the cost of their education.

Susan Aud and Leon Michos of the CATO Institute argue that the funding provided by the federal government for the program is hurting the school system. In their report, Spreading Freedom and Saving Money, they note, “…the additional support essentially negates the oft-cited rationale for voucher programs— that creating competition will induce public schools to operate more efficiently.” This is because, in effect, when a student chooses to take part in the voucher program, the school system saves the money that they would otherwise use to educate the student. Aud and Michos argue that for schools to improve they need to “face the prospect of having a smaller budget”. They insist that a voucher program that does not create competition for student attendance will not create an incentive for the school system to improve quality.

The report states that the DC system for school vouchers weakly resembles what the program should look like because, “…DCPS is rewarded for declining enrollment, [and] the program fails to create incentives to improve fiscal responsibility and accountability.”

They suggest strengthening the program by having it fully funded by local government. This would mean that the voucher rate would remain the same, at $7,500 per student, with no additional grant from the federal government. In effect, this would cause a revenue loss for the school when a student opts out of it for a charter school. A concern of many policy makers is that local funding could become too much for the school system. However, Aud and Michos find that even if the city fully funds the voucher program they will be able to save more than $250,000 if 1,027 pupils remain in the charter school program.

Another suggestion is to expand the access to the program to more than just low income parents. A likely scenario is that the number of students in the program would increase to 4,900 (or 10% of all students), requiring the District to allocate $37 million to the voucher program. At the same time, the per pupil cost in the public schools would decrease, saving the system about $2 million. However, this would have to be coupled with an expansion into the private schools in the neighboring counties of Virginia and Maryland. This would create, “…a rise in the number of private schools in which students could enroll…and a likely drop in the voucher amount [cost] required.” The report suggests that the $7,500 allotment remain constant, with the expectation that many students will not use the entire allotment in the less expensive neighboring schools.

Although the DC school system has made it possible for students to escape failing schools, it has not created any incentive for improvement. The District of Columbia appears unwilling to stop the old practice of funneling money into failing school systems. Until they take the jump to self reliance and the leap to a competition-driven school system, true reform may be out of reach.

Rosemarie Capozzi is an intern at Accuracy in Academia.