Tax credits for private schools: Point / Counterpoint
Should Virginia give tax credits for donations to scholarship funds for private schools?
Tax credits pull more money out of public schools
Joseph Yost
Yost is a member of the House of Delegates representing the 12th District.
As a rural legislator, I see the importance that schools play in our communities. These institutions provide not merely an educational experience but also serve as centers of community activity during football games, basketball games, track meets, academic competitions and, most recently, graduations.
Before I continue, I am not against the principle of school choice. I believe that parents should have the option to choose where their child attends school, whether that is at home, in public schools, charter schools or private schools. However, as a representative of the 12th District, it is my responsibility to do what I think is in the best interest of my constituents.
During the 2012 General Assembly session, we considered numerous public policy proposals aimed at providing reforms to Virginia’s educational system, most notably House Bill 321 and Senate Bill 131. These bills establish a tax credit for corporations making donations that provide education improvement scholarships to students to attend nonpublic schools.
While this is certainly a laudable endeavor, in the end it only continues to shift money away from core functions of government and adds another tax credit to Virginia’s already cluttered books, two of the main reasons I opposed passage of the legislation.
First, the proposed tax credit has a spending cap of $25 million. Although we saw an almost $600 million increase in public education funding this year, this increase goes only part of the way to restoring funding to the 2007 levels before the recession. But it is not only the public education system that is struggling; an aging transportation infrastructure, struggling public safety agencies or protections for our state’s most vulnerable would all be better served by these monies.
Secondly, a November 2011 publication by the Joint Legislative Audit Review Commission reported that Virginia has enacted more than 70 tax credits that aim to promote economic development, resource preservation and other activities that are deemed desirable. These credits have a combined cost to the commonwealth of nearly $3 billion. While tax credits are intended to promote a specific activity, it is possible to be fiscally irresponsible with tax credits, and until this past session, Virginia had no laws on the books to provide sunset dates and periodic reviews to identify effective tax credits and improve or eliminate ineffective ones.
In closing, the fiscal impact statement provided by the Department of Taxation noted, “To the extent that this legislation is successful, it will result in future funding increases being less for public education than would otherwise be the case.” Now is not the time to be providing taxpayer-funded subsidies for private school tuition when approximately 94.8 percent of Virginia’s children attend a public school.
School choice tax credits empower parents
Bill Stanley
Stanley, of Franklin County, serves in the Virginia Senate.
The most basic fundamental freedom that parents in Virginia possess is the power to determine how their children are educated. This right is based in the belief that parents know what’s best for their children and will always want what is best; consequently, parents should be empowered to make decisions on the type of education their child will receive.
A child’s educational opportunities should be determined by needs and abilities, and not by zip code. Parents must have all options at their disposal, regardless of their economic status.
My school choice bill ensures parents of all economic stations will have these options available to them. Senate Bill 131 empowers low-income and needy families with school choice for their children by establishing a K-12 scholarship program funded by private industry and individuals.
The school choice law encourages private contributions from both businesses and individuals to approved not-for-profit scholarship organizations, giving business and individual taxpayers limited credits against their Virginia income taxes. The eligible scholarship foundations that receive these donations must use the donated money to provide scholarships to qualified families to pay for the yearly private-school tuition for qualified low-income, at-risk or disabled students. The eligible donated amount will provide $25 million in scholarships to eligible students per year.
Under this new law, nearly 500,000 low-income, at-risk and disabled children will be eligible to receive a scholarship. This program will save the state significant tax dollars by saving the full yearly amount that it would otherwise spend on each student who takes advantage of the private school scholarship, without harm to local government revenues that are allocated for public education. Moreover, similar scholarship programs in other states have been extremely successful, and have withstood legal challenges on constitutional grounds. Despite what the opponents say, it poses no harm to public schools; frankly, the annual maximum $25 million tax credit is modest in comparison to what the state pays in public education. Providing school choice for all Virginia parents will make our public schools better, more competitive and, in the end, stronger.
We need to think outside the box and employ innovative teaching and educational methods. Because the promise of an education is a core service of state government, it is incumbent upon us to do all that we can to improve our education system, as well as to provide every student with a level playing field in providing high quality educational choices that will give the student the best chance to succeed without regard to economic status.
It is imperative that we have a vibrant workforce that is skilled and educated. We need to provide the educational platforms for our workforce that will foster the future economic prosperity of our region. Our children are that future workforce.
June 17, 2012 - 8:03 AM
I completely agree with Joseph Yost. While I also fully support the right or private schools to exist, and of private individuals and corporations to donate to scholarships for those schools, doing so does not circumvent ones obligations to contribute what is required of everyone else. If someone wishes to do so that is great however they should do so because they have the want and ability, not because they have been bribed by a tax credit. Instead of diverting money to these private schools through loss of tax revenue, we should reinforce obligations to the tax system so that the public education system can be reinforced and restored to being among the best in the First World.
VA will be doing just what the other states are – using the tax credits to give a tax break to those using privates schools. The schools get the parents and grandparents to donate to the fund using their tax dollars and amazingly, their kids and grandkids get scholarships to private schools.
As a parent that has children attending a public school that has not met AYP for three consecutive years, and cannot switch schools because the school is not a Title 1 school, I fully support Stanley’s bill. In fact, let’s do something radical like approve vouchers or support charter schools. Children are not one size fits all, but the current public school system treats them as such. I would be grateful to have the chance to send my children to a school of my choice instead of being told which school they can attend based on our residence.
Any attempt to undercut the public schools is unacceptable. The foundation of an educated population, which is the backbone of a successful republic, has been under attack since Reagan. It must stop. Private schools, of course, have the right to exist and parents have the right to send their students to them, but not at the expense of the public schools.
This is one more step by the GOP and the religious right to destroy public schools and to have the State pay for private religious schools. Check out the previous States having this system and see where it has gone. It simply is a direct credit given to parents to pay for their childrens tuition.
You’ll notice in Mr. Stanley’s argument at no point does he say we should accept “school choice” because it actually works better (which is good because there is nothing to show it does!) Also note his other justification is about providing an educated work force. It almost seems like a Freudian slip. He doesn’t see the value of an education except in relation to making them better workers. I wonder how much education they’re going to need for these low wages jobs?
http://prospect.org/article/post-new-deal-america-needs-unions
…Among the occupations that the Bureau of Labor Statistics says will have the most job growth between 2010 and 2020 are cashiers (median annual wage as of 2010, $18,500; projected growth 250,000 new jobs), childcare workers ($19,300; 262,000 new jobs), home health and personal care aides (roughly $20,000; 1.3 million new jobs), food prep and fast-food workers ($17,950; 398,000 new jobs), and retail sales workers ($20,670; 707,000 new jobs).
No, for Mr. Stanley, this really isn’t about what’s doing best for the students. It’s about what’s doing best for employers. It’s not about having an educated citizenry, it’s about making people just capable enough to work at Wal-Mart but not capable enough to question their leaders.
Unfortunately Mr. Yost is right there with him but suggests we do it at a slower pace.
Schools are being portrayed as failing for not meeting AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) as determined by Standards of Learning scores. Most people don’t understand the way AYP works with regards to sub-groups. This year around 90% of students had to pass the SOL test in Reading for a school to make AYP. What people may not know is every sub-group also had to pass at this 90% rate for the school to make AYP. Sub groups include low income, special education, minority, and ESL students. So if 95% of the school passed, but only 80% of the special education students did, then the school does not make AYP. Knowing why a school did not meet AYP is important in determining the strengths and weaknesses of the school.
Isn’t Stanley that guy who said he would stick a gun in the face of anybody who showed up to try to confirm he actually lived in his district?
7. Wilbert – you are so true. My wife was helping tutor at a school in another state recently. The 10 year old ESL student she was working with was paying little attention to her instruction. Since a lot of hiss friends were returning to Mexico, she thought that might be on his mind. She was pointing out how that even if he left the US, measurement would always be important to him – there would always be 12 inches in a foot, 100 centimeters in a meter, and that he needed to know these things. He immediately came back with no it would not because it did not matter. His mother had told him that the World would end on December 24 in 2012 and he did not need to worry about learning.
His scores will make a big difference in this school meeting AYP and in the raise or retention his teacher receives. Think teaching is a job for you anyone?
8. I guess the good thing about the private school credits is that he will now be able to get a scholarship to go to that great private school that does not have to meet AYP.
10. One more point – depending on the Supreme Court ruling, Gov. Haley’s illegal alien law will be helping spawn a tremendous surge in ESL students in Virginia.
#8 I have tried, but failed to find the quote. Going to go out on a limb & say the context was one of people trespassing on his home & peeking in windows. If, so, just a little different than you characterize.
I must wonder at Bill Stanley’s believing parents know what is best for their children and will do what is best for them. That may be true for a few parents, but as I showed in 9, many parents do not know what is best and thenif you check on the parents who are stoned on prescription medicine, alcohol, illegal drugs, illegal prescription drugs, and all the many other distractions that parents have such as affairs, work, TV, Church, concerts, sports,and so forth, I simply do not believe that most parents know or truly care about their children’s needs. Granted a few Mommy’s are at the school everyday to make sure their child gets plenty of attention, but most never darken the door until they are called in by the principal.
I found this at Reuters today. There is something for everyone here but because I too have an agenda, I’m highlighting only the parts that support my position. Fair warning.
One thing has become abundantly clear though, it’s time for unions to give up on the Democrats as they’ve turned into Republicans-Lite.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/18/us-usa-education-trigger-idUSBRE85H0J620120618
…Parent trigger laws are in place in several states including California, Texas and Louisiana and are under consideration in states including Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York. So far, though, the concept has never successfully been used to turn around a school.
…Though it has not yet been shown to work, parent trigger has support from many of the big players seeking to inject more free-market competition into public education, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.
Major philanthropies and wealthy financiers have poured money into backing political candidates and advocacy groups, including one called Parent Revolution, that promote parent trigger, according to campaign finance records in several states.
The concept has even inspired an upcoming Hollywood film, “Won’t Back Down,” in which Maggie Gyllenhaal portrays a single mother who organizes parents to take control of their failing school over union opposition. The movie was financed by Walden Media, which also backed the 2010 documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” which advocated for another central goal of education reformers – expanding charter schools.
…They said they would continue to fight – in part by reminding voters that parent trigger can be a mechanism for turning public schools over to private control. Some of the private management companies that run charter schools are for-profits that do not divulge much about how they spend public funds….
#12 Here it is, Jim Lucas:
“Stanley is renting his current house in Glade Hill, but said he has moved all of his clothes and most of his furniture there. And he’s currently looking to buy a farm in the area.
Asked if he had seen any of Reynolds’ campaign staff investigating to see if he’s actually living in his new house, Stanley said: “Not that I know of, unless they want to get a face full of my Glock.”
How manly of him.
The context?
“Smith rents a house on Bent Mountain from his campaign manager, Steve Mabry. Last week, all of the window blinds were drawn on the small house, and the small driveway and front porch were covered with undisturbed leaves.”
These are things that could have been seen from the road, and certainly did not involved peeping in a window.
http://www.roanoke.com/politics/wb/299829
#15 Thanks GDAD. Promise, not trying to parse (moi?), but your final statement is your speculation; “These are things that could have been seen from the road, and certainly did not involved peeping in a window.”
I’m pretty sure that regardless of the entire context, I saw local news reports of people on his porch & looking in windows, he never threatened to shoot people driving by in their cars. Which by the way, would be assault.
What he said falls into the category of “huffing”, not unusual for any politician, and I still think you mis-characterized it in your # 8. Thanks again.
Here’s the problem with this whole school choice idea being pushed by BOTH these gentlemen. Most parents rather assume any school receiving tax dollars is being regulated and held to the same standards as public schools and this simply isn’t true. Most of the tax dollars that are going to be taken away from public schools will be sent to fundamentalist and other religious schools.
“So what?” you wonder. Aren’t these schools at least as good as public schools and possibly better? Of course they may be. Many Catholic schools do have a reputation for academic excellence. Even Liberty “University” has a pretty decent reputation in area unconcerned with religious dogma.
But consider those schools that are worse than our public schools unbeholden to anyone and free to feed at the public trough. Here’s a great example from Louisianan but it’s applicable anywhere. Even here in the commonwealth, we have these types of schools. One of them is Liberty “University” and another is Regent “University”, and Patrick Henry “College”. I can’t even imagine trying to name all the similar types of elementary, middle, and high schools in Virginia let alone the Roanoke Valley.
Read the whole article Mr. Stanley. Read the whole article Mr. Yost. If you truly care about what’s best for our citizenry, you will fight these school choice programs tooth and nail and/or put safeguards in place so these types of schools either can’t receive the funding or must be held accountable to the same standards as our public schools at a minimum.
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2012/6/17/9311/48633/Front_Page/Nessie_a_Plesiosaur_Louisiana_To_Fund_Schools_Using_Odd_Bigoted_Fundamentalist_Textbooks
…One of the schools cleared to receive substantial new funding through LA governor Bobby Jindal’s voucher program is Eternity Christian Academy, in Westlake, LA, which according to Independent Weekly writer Walter Pierce,
“…has been approved to accept 135 new students. That’s a considerable uptick in enrollment, which at the end of this school year stood at 38 — a more than 300 percent increase. Talk about buttressing the budget; $1 million in tax dollars will be diverted from the public school system to Eternity Christian, a school that, according to its mission statement, offers “a quality faith-based curriculum that is soley [sic] based on principles from the Bible …”
According to the Eternity Christian Academy website, the school uses the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum. So, what’s in the ACE curriculum?
An August 29, 2009 story in the Times Educational Supplement, a British publication for teachers, provides an excerpt from an Accelerated Christian Education science textbook:
Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence.
Have you heard of the `Loch Ness Monster’ in Scotland? `Nessie,’ for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.
Could a fish have developed into a dinosaur? As astonishing as it may seem, many evolutionists theorize that fish evolved into amphibians and amphibians into reptiles. This gradual change from fish to reptiles has no scientific basis. No transitional fossils have been or ever will be discovered because God created each type of fish, amphibian, and reptile as separate, unique animals. Any similarities that exist among them are due to the fact that one Master Craftsmen fashioned them all.”
Extract from Biology 1099, Accelerated Christian Education Inc. (1995)…..
I wonder what Mr. Stanley and Mr. Yost think of this article from the San Antonio Current. It’s about a charter school that routinely oversteps the boundaries of separating church and state. I realize that is OK and potentially even the aim of school choice legislation. I sincerely hope though, Mr. Stanley and Mr. Yost realize they’re advocating turning our nation into something like Afghanistan.
http://sacurrent.com/news/church-state-watchdog-claims-local-taxpayer-funded-charter-school-more-parochial-than-public-1.1332240
…In late January, Cheryl Washington spoke to the local KROV-hosted radio show Rhema Gospel Express outlining her God-given mandate to change San Antonio and ultimately the state of Texas. Washington, a pastor at the Universal City-based Shadrach Temple International, spoke with conviction, saying God had given her “dominion,” power, and authority to fertilize and grow the Almighty’s garden here in San Antonio.
“That garden for me seems to be the education system that he has me in.”….
…Of the 26 charter holders operating in Bexar County, none are exemplary or recognized, 15 are academically acceptable, and other 11 are considered academically unacceptable.
This lack of oversight is amplified by the fact that charter school boards of trustees are essentially self-appointed, Soto said. Shekinah’s website does not list the board members charged with overseeing the institute’s 13 academies. When asked for a list Monday, the institute told the Current to file an open records request (they have yet to supply a list as of press time Tuesday)….
Our two debaters may also want to visit this report from American United for Separation of Church and State.
One has to wonder if Mr. Stanley and Mr. Yost will be so in favor of these types of schools when Atheists begin to organize them. There is no reason to think atheists won’t use these same laws and rules to gather money from the public. It often turns our when the rules are actually applied equally, the religious majority suddenly discover the wall of separation between church and state. I’d be happy to provide examples if you like.
http://www.au.org/church-state/june-2012-church-state/featured/charter-for-controversy
…This situation seems to be just one of many examples of charter schools blurring church-state lines. Thanks to bipartisan backing from both Democrats and Republicans, charter schools – independent public schools run by private contractors or other groups – have flourished. The trend is bolstered by a perception that charter schools provide superior educational outcomes to traditional public schools.
But what proponents ignore is that charter schools, which operate with little accountability or oversight, sometimes entangle religion in their operations and underperform academically in comparison to traditional public schools. ….
A story coming out of Washington, DC about their school voucher program. Needless to say the only people pushing for it are those most closely aligned with business interests which is to say Republicans. And Obama in his “wisdom” and the spirit of compromise has agreed to continue funding “school choice” for a little more time.
But note the use of the scientific method and the actual studying of it’s effects. They seem to indicate the null-hypothesis rules. In other words, public schools are as good as private education or vice versa, private schools aren’t any better than public.
So, a waste of money? Probably.
I want a government that uses evidence to make decisions and not the market fairy or voodoo economics.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/18/much-debated-scholarship-program-for-d-c-students-is-renewed/
…A 2010 Department of Education evaluation found “no conclusive evidence” that the scholarships affected student achievement. The evaluation split 2,300 students eligible to apply for the scholarships into two groups: those who received the money and those who did not. Then it examined test scores, graduation rates, perceptions of school safety and satisfaction over a four- or five-year period.
Students who used the scholarships earned reading and math scores that, for the most part, mirrored the scores of public school students. The report said the program did improve students’ chances of high school graduation by about 12 percent.
Gosh, the government organ responsible for running government schools conducted a study that a) assumed that government schools are no worse than anyone else’s; b) concluded that government schools are no worse than anyone else’s; and c) any attempts to say otherwise are a waste of time and money.
Scholarship like that can only be the product of government schools. I’m sure Sasha and Malia attend the neighborhood school.
@21 89Hoo, study began in 2005 under a different administration so at least you can’t argue it’s Obama’s fault.
But aside from that, do you have data showing these data aren’t good?
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/charter_schools/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier
If I could believe for a moment that the TP/GOP goal was to “empower” all parents or improve public education, I might be persuaded to actually read the remarks. Since that is an impossibility, I will not waste my less than valuable time. We have had this “argument” in one form or another virtually since public education began. If you care about education, set national standards, let the educators do it, and get the politics and politicians out of it beyond approving the budgets and reviewing the results. THAT would fix education.
22 – I’ve never argued that anything is exclusively the fault of one President or the other, Scott, as statism is statism whether it is headed by a Republicrat or a Demoplican. I blame all and except none.
As to evidence and data, anyone can find a study that shows private schools are better, or that public schools are better, or that home schools are better. They are meaningless, all of them, as they usually are sponsored / conducted by the players in the debate, and inevitably support the sponsor’s position.
But anecdotally, if DC public schools offered the same education as private schools, don’t you think we would see more of the DC elite send their children to public schools, particularly if they could save themselves the cost of the private tuition? The fact that they don’t says more to me than a meaningless biased study.
People send their children to private schools for all sorts of reasons. Some cultural, some racial, some religious, some for discipline and boarding, and yes, some for a “superior” education. When I take note of some of the extremely intelligent, articulate and innovative people in this nation who came from public schools I tend to take that supposed private school “superiority” with many grains of salt. Parental involvement, encouragement and expectations, as well as innate ability have a lot more influence than the building or classroom you enter IMO.
@24 89Hoo, I try to make claims only so far as my knowledge will reasonably allow. Sometimes I overstep that boundary though. I fear you may have too when you said, “…if DC public schools offered the same education as private schools, don’t you think we would see more of the DC elite send their children to public schools, particularly if they could save themselves the cost of the private tuition?..”
I think to make this claim one would have to a decent survey of who we consider to be elites that should send their kids to DC schools. Then we’d have to find out which of them have school age kids that live in the DC area, etc.
For example, I think Rep. Griffith’s children live in the Salem area so that standard wouldn’t apply to him. I don’t know if Goodlatte even has children.
26 – I would not consider either Griffin or Goodlatte to be elite in any setting, much less DC, which is the topic we are discussing.
I am pleased, for the most part, with the public schools in this area, and I think I may have mentioned in the past that my little girl will likely attend public schools in a few years. I think the quality gap between public and private schools increases with population, and is much more pronounced in bigger cities. If I lived in DC (the city), I would do everything I could to avoid sending my child to a public school. I don’t believe for a second that DC public schools are equivalent to private schools.