Recent IndyStar columns from Jacob Stewart and Rob Kendall deeply misunderstand how public school districts work. As a teacher, I feel compelled to correct these errors.
Private schools are actually quite dependent on districts. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act guarantees students a free and appropriate public education. The operative word is public, meaning all private school students with disabilities must be served by the public district in which the school is located. IDEA also applies to homeschools — the district they live in is responsible for identification, evaluation and services.
Districts expend time and resources serving private school students with disabilities — about $2 billion annually — including home visits and transportation. This is largely unreimbursed. Locally, for example, many students living in northern suburbs commute to Indianapolis private schools, and my district ensures that those students receive the services they’re entitled to.
This is why the vast majority of private schools that teach students with disabilities hire zero special education staff — they are not legally required to do so, leaving districts with the burden to send in speech, occupational therapy, hearing and vision services and instructional support. Money does not follow these students from their suburban homes.
District dependence isn’t limited to special education. Districts also share Title I funding to provide tutoring. They offer free meals to students through the summer. Many school districts regularly offer athletic and performance facilities to private and home schools in kind.
Area private schools regularly use Indianapolis Public Schools’ practice fields for their own tournaments. Virtually all district playgrounds are available for free to homeschool students when school is out. These facilities are public goods, paid for by public dollars, and everyone benefits from their upkeep.
Stewart raises a pot-kettle problem: After all, my income tax dollars are subsidizing private school vouchers. I won’t revisit the voucher debate here, but if everyone must pay for vouchers, everyone should adequately fund public schools. Educational opportunity is a public good. It builds Hoosier skill and talent, and keeps it local, because families buy houses near good, stable schools.
What happens if empty-nesters decide to run with Stewart’s logic and oppose taxes that fund any school, private or public? They would clearly constitute a majority — more than half of U.S. households have no school-age children. Why should a video game streamer pay taxes for parks? Why should a person in a walkable neighborhood pay for roads? A society where we all squirrel our dollars away in hidey-holes of self-interest is no society at all.
Stewart cherry-picks “problems” in public schools. There are occasional problems in all schools. But I can give you a hundred success stories at schools of all types. Characterizing a school system with a Google search of isolated headlines is not “data.” In my class, I wouldn’t allow it as valid evidence in an essay.
Kendall’s column carries less nuance. He characterizes public school districts as tyrants raising taxes to fund their coffers. Paradoxically, this tyranny comes in the form of voting. Ballot initiatives and referenda are direct democracy, the least tyrannical process in our republic, and Indiana already allows far fewer than most states. Voting is a civic duty, and characterizing it as oppressive is insulting to Hoosiers.
Mysteriously, Kendall describes “any school administrator…who supports a referendum (as) entitled (because) they refuse to … be the least bit creative.” Yet virtually every district seeking a referendum has also made millions of dollars of programmatic cuts, hiring freezes and closures. Kendall presents a social media-friendly presumption that crumbles under minutes of research.
If there are 100 referenda this year, it’s precisely because the state implemented a property tax plan for political gain that helped few and harmed many. Now local units beg for scraps to keep services running. Deny them this, and all Hoosiers will share in the collapse that follows.
Ronak Shah is a middle school science teacher in Indianapolis.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: You benefit from public schools even if you don’t use them | Opinion
Reporting by Ronak Shah, Opinion Contributor / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
