Voucher Politics and the Purpose of Schools

by Vince Durnan

The school tuition voucher saga plays on this week in our state legislature. How is it relevant for USN?
 
First the bill gets on the calendar, then it gets pulled, then it reappears, to face amendments aplenty and the prospect of last-minute deals and a cliffhanger outcome. Such has been the course of the tuition voucher bill in Tennessee for several procedural rounds in recent years, but this time it seems to have reached escape velocity, complete with the presumption of gubernatorial support. In all the excitement, what the bill actually permits ends up obscured by the headlines.
 
The basic concept is this: families from the lowest standardized test score schools, from the lowest income bracket, could opt to send their children to private schools that might make a life-changing difference. A significant portion of the money that would have funded each child’s public school education would travel with the child to the private school—to help (or perhaps to fully) underwrite the cost of that education. What’s not to like about providing this alternative, a riff on what’s already present in the public charter school option?
 
The troubling stuff, at least for me, is a click or two into the details. First, where are we to find empty seats in private schools? Most likely in schools that for whatever reason have not proven to be a draw already—a school at capacity (like USN) would need to lose some students in order to make room for voucher candidates. Or at entirely new schools, founded to run on vouchers.

Second, the dollar value of the voucher, currently set at about $7K, covers only a fraction of the expenses in all but the least costly school settings—in fact it’s 20% or so lower than per-pupil expenditures at Metro Nashville zoned schools.

Third, as is the case with the charter school protocol, vouchers would be granted via a lottery for spots identified in each sponsoring school, thereby eliminating any other admission process whatsoever, by design.
 
Experience in other cities, Milwaukee and Indianapolis for example, indicates that voucher program participants overwhelmingly attend faith-based schools, largely Catholic in those communities. Students are expected to take all state-mandated tests to measure academic progress, but the context for the educational experience is religiously based. One wonders what types of congregations would or could sponsor voucher students in Tennessee and how inclusive the resulting programs might be. One wonders about what kind of schools might spring up in order to provide an education for what the voucher can pay—again by design, schools cannot charge families anything at all.
 
In fairness, the initial scale of the program is tiny, capped at 1% of the million or so public school students in Tennessee. It could be viewed as one more lifeboat that might prove helpful on stormy seas. But the idea of public dollars funding private schools is no small K-12 precedent. And of the challenges faced by public schools in our state, excess funding would not be one—this program quite intentionally moves money away from school district control.
 
And what right would someone in my seat have to comment on the topic at all? Wouldn’t decrying vouchers be an act of hypocrisy, given our identity as an alternative to public schools, and an option mostly for those with the capacity to pay? Fair enough, but at the same time we were not meant primarily as a rival to our public school neighbors, nor do we draw on public funds.

Our historic purpose is to model educational best practice, to do something for education here on Edgehill. We talk and we work frequently with any interested school colleagues in our city and far afield. We strive to serve a public purpose– as may also be the case with voucher schools and charter schools—but this wedge issue dynamic and its corresponding acrimony are real and growing in the education reform world, while we still aim to be part of a solution.
 
A few days ago, I asked a group from our senior class about the aims of their education. Specifically, I asked whether they experienced USN as dedicated to building productive citizens, to building individual capacity for success in future endeavors, or to forming and deepening lifelong interests and passions.  The group identified that second option about success as predominant, but they were drawn to the importance of active, useful citizenship.

My continuing worry is about that civic priority being lost in the educational reform conversation. Vouchers are a case in point, serving another agenda, more political than productive in the long haul, more an indication of frustration and fragmentation on the path to effective schools than a sign of progress. Their existence reminds us that we need to get back to work, together.

Watching the returns,

Vince
 
 
 
 

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		USN Mission: 
University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of Metropolitan Nashville, USN fosters each student’s intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.