The new federal school choice program, while generating strong partisan reactions both pro and con, will remain murky until the U.S. Treasury Department tells us exactly how it works. In the meantime, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is wise to wait before opting in or out.Passed by Congress as part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (or OBBB), the law creates 100% tax credits for taxpayers who give up to $1,700 to “Scholarship Granting Organizations” (or SGOs) and empowers SGOs in states opting into the program to pool the donated money and then grant scholarships for students’ qualified elementary or secondary education expenses, including tuition, fees, tutoring, books, supplies, computers and other equipment. The program begins in January 2027.
Advocates of private school vouchers love this new law, and for good reason: it circumvents widespread voter opposition to voucher schemes that funnel public money to private schools. Instead of taxpayers paying the government, which then issues school vouchers, the taxpayers pay the SGOs, which then pay the schools — different money path, same origin and destination.
Why the fiscal sleight of hand? According to the National Coalition for Public Education, voucher proposals have been put to voters 17 times since 1970 and have been rejected every time, including in Michigan, where voters trounced a proposed constitutional amendment in 2000 by a margin of more than two to one.Why do voters always reject vouchers? The reasons involve both academic quality and fairness to kids and families. First, careful research has clearly shown that vouchers actually lower academic achievement. Two separate research teams found huge negative effects on measured achievement, particularly for math, from a Louisiana program, and other studies found test score declines by voucher students in Ohio and Indiana.These declines occur because state voucher programs have encouraged the creation of lousy new schools by opportunists seeking to cash in. When kids enrolled in these new “schools,” many struggled and, when they returned to their traditional public school, they were found to have lost much ground academically.
Sometimes, voucher funds are spent on things that have nothing to do with education. A recent audit of Arizona voucher funds for home-schools found that 20% of purchases by parents were unallowable. The program was initially designed primarily for students with disabilities, but was expanded to all students in 2022. The errant purchases included video games, jewelry and dog training. Some parents also paid themselves to homeschool their kids.As to fairness, vouchers and tax credit schemes have been shown to funnel tax dollars to well-off families who were already sending their kids to private schools, many of which discriminate against kids they don’t want. Most antidiscrimination protections, including those for children with learning disabilities, do not exist in private schools, even those enjoying taxpayer subsidies.So, an important question for state policymakers is whether the new federal tax credit and scholarship program will avoid the serious pitfalls of current state voucher schemes and actually provide opportunities to benefit Michigan’s public school kids with after-school programs, tutoring and other services? Or is it just another voucher program with some bells and whistles intended to hide its main thrust of boosting private and religious schools at the public’s expense?
More specifically, will the eagerly awaited rules from the U.S. Treasury Department allow Michigan and other states the flexibility to protect families from predatory entrepreneurs, guarantee access for all students, prohibit tax giveaways to affluent families and fund only research-based educational services like intensive tutoring and personalized reading instruction? Or, will the new law ensnare states in a federal program that subsidizes affluent families, discriminates against particular groups of students and harms public schools?As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. Whitmer is wise to wait and see what these details will be. If the rules empower states to enrich public school programs and protect families, kids and taxpayers from the abuses of past and present voucher schemes, she should accept the invitation. Otherwise, she should decline.
Mike Addonizio is Professor Emeritus in the College of Education at Wayne State University.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Whitmer is right to wait on federal school choice plan | Opinion
Reporting by Mike Addonizio / The Detroit News
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