{"id":67446,"date":"2023-03-10T00:03:46","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T05:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=67446"},"modified":"2023-03-10T00:03:46","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T05:03:46","slug":"school-choice-proposals-rarely-go-before-voters-and-typically-fail-when-they-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/school-choice-proposals-rarely-go-before-voters-and-typically-fail-when-they-do\/","title":{"rendered":"School choice proposals rarely go before voters \u2013 and typically fail when they do"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Arizona lawmakers decided in late 2022 that the\u00a0state will pay tuition, related education expenses or both<\/a>\u00a0for children at any school parents select, including private and religious schools.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the latest step in an effort to provide public funds for private schools that in Arizona began in 2011. And that step was taken along what I have discovered to be a familiar route.<\/p>\n

As an\u00a0education policy researcher<\/a>, I wanted to understand why these voucher programs are becoming more common despite evidence they\u00a0do not improve, and may even impede, students\u2019 educational achievement<\/a>. Rather than put the question of whether to use public money for private schools before voters, advocates for choice almost always want state legislatures to make the decision instead. That may be because a careful look at the efforts suggests that if it were up to voters, school choice proposals would rarely succeed.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers in\u00a0Iowa<\/a>,\u00a0West Virginia<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0New Hampshire<\/a>\u00a0all recently passed plans similar to Arizona\u2019s. In 2022,\u00a0Michigan advocates \u2013 led by former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 chose to\u00a0petition legislators<\/a>\u00a0to approve\u00a0such a plan<\/a>\u00a0for over a million children, rather than seeking a public referendum on the issue.<\/p>\n

Private and religious schools have traditionally been prohibited from receiving taxpayer dollars. But since\u00a0private school-choice programs<\/a>\u00a0began in the 1990s, 32 states and the District of Columbia have adopted 76 school voucher or voucherlike programs that allow families to send their children to private schools at public expense, according to the pro-voucher group\u00a0EdChoice<\/a>. Additionally,\u00a045 states and Washington, D.C.<\/a>, have charter school programs, which are publicly funded but privately managed.<\/p>\n

But of those 121 programs, only two have been approved by voters. The issue has been brought to referendum in various states 16 times since Michigan first voted on it in 1978 and has been rejected 14 times. In\u00a02012<\/a>,\u00a0Georgia voters<\/a>\u00a0enabled state lawmakers to authorize charter schools, and Washington state voters\u00a0barely passed<\/a>\u00a0a charter school initiative they\u00a0had rejected twice before<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Parents\u2019 interest growing<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Parents are taking advantage of those opportunities. There are\u00a050 million public school students<\/a>\u00a0in grades K-12 in the U.S., of whom 3.4 million attend charter schools. About 5.5 million students are in private schools. The numbers are proportionately small, but growing.<\/p>\n

For instance, from 2000 to 2016, the U.S. Department of Education reported the number of students in charter schools\u00a0increased more than fivefold<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pressure on public schools<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Advocates for public schools argue that when public money is spent on private schools, it \u201c[siphons] off students, resources and funding<\/a>\u201d from public schools.<\/p>\n

But supporters say voucher programs\u00a0usefully pressure public schools to improve<\/a>\u00a0under threat of losing enrollment and funding.<\/p>\n

And\u00a0still others<\/a>\u00a0emphasize distinctions between\u00a0different types<\/a>\u00a0of choice programs,\u00a0regulations and funding schemes<\/a>. For instance, some people support publicly funded charter schools as options within the public school system, but do not support vouchers allowing families to take tax dollars to help pay for private schools.<\/p>\n

Referendums failed<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The process by which these programs have become law started\u00a0in 1978 in Michigan<\/a>\u00a0with petitions and referendums, but they largely failed. That 1978 proposal sought a statewide referendum to create vouchers and got on the ballot but was\u00a0rejected by a 3-to-1 margin<\/a>. A very similar Michigan petition drive in 2000 failed by a\u00a0similarly large margin<\/a>. Referendum efforts in 2000 in California, and one in Utah in 2007,\u00a0also failed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a result, more recent efforts aim to go through the legislature \u2013 even if laws that have passed have also been overturned by referendums later.<\/p>\n

For instance, a 2017 Arizona law would have allowed students to\u00a0use taxpayer dollars at private schools<\/a>. But before it could take effect, a petition drive gave voters a chance to\u00a0overturn the law<\/a>, which they did in 2018, by a\u00a0two-thirds majority<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2022, state lawmakers passed an almost identical bill, and as he had in 2017, Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican,\u00a0signed it into law on July 7, 2022<\/a>. A second petition drive to reverse it\u00a0failed to round up nearly 120,000 signatures<\/a>\u00a0before the legal deadline, and the law took effect.<\/p>\n

A new effort in Michigan<\/strong><\/h4>\n

But in 2022, a new petition drive arose, backed by former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a Michigan native and former state Republican Party chair. Instead of asking voters to approve the idea, however, it used a\u00a0provision of Michigan law<\/a>\u00a0that meant the petition\u00a0positioned legislators to pass the law themselves<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That process sought to preempt another referendum on school choice, as well as a\u00a0likely veto<\/a>\u00a0from Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.<\/p>\n

When voters flipped control of the Michigan Legislature from Republican to Democratic in November 2022,\u00a0DeVos\u2019 group withdrew its petition<\/a>, effectively killing the proposal.<\/p>\n

The next time a school choice program is put before lawmakers, it\u2019s worth asking whether the program would pass if it were put before voters. History shows the answer is usually a resounding \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n

Author Bio: <\/strong>Christopher Lubienski is a Professor of Education Policy at Indiana University<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arizona lawmakers decided in late 2022 that the\u00a0state will pay tuition, related education expenses or both\u00a0for children at any school parents select, including private and religious schools. It\u2019s the latest step in an effort to provide public funds for private schools that in Arizona began in 2011. And that step was taken along what I […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15645],"tags":[11935],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-67446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","tag-school-choice"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSchool choice proposals rarely go before voters \u2013 and typically fail when they do - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/school-choice-proposals-rarely-go-before-voters-and-typically-fail-when-they-do\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"School choice proposals rarely go before voters \u2013 and typically fail when they do - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Arizona lawmakers decided in late 2022 that the\u00a0state will pay tuition, related education expenses or both\u00a0for children at any school parents select, including private and religious schools. 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