School Leader

KY finally crashes through the education establishment barricades, becomes a school choice state

After years of hard work on the part of lawmakers, educators, and parent activitists, Kentucky has finally passed a school choice law. HB 563 was vetoed by Gov. Andy Beshear, but last night both houses of the state legislature overrode his veto and the bill will go to Secretary of State Michael Adams' desk for his signature and will become law. Kentucky is one of the last states in the nation to adopt a law addressing school choice.¹

What the law does

HB 563 includes two major provisions. First, the law makes it easier for families to send their children to a public school that is outside of the district where they reside. Previously all such moves were carefully dictated by inter-district transfer agreements that gave larger districts an outsized advantage, allowing them to bar the door to keep a certain number of students from leaving each year. The new law creates greater balance by giving students access to any school with an open seat, and state education dollars will flow with them to their new public school.

The second provision of HB 563 will help establish education opportunity accounts (EOA's). These privately-funded scholarships will assist families with incomes up to 175% of the federal free-and-reduced lunch eligibilty amount to access a wide variety of services, including partial or full tuition, in both public and nonpublic schools. A non-refundable tax credit encourages donations to these accounts, with priority given to

Unleashing Parent Power in Education

Last night I had the opportunity to give a virtual talk sponsored by the Kentucky chapter of Americans for Prosperity on the topic of "Unleashing Parent Power in Education." The talk itself isn't available to share, but I wanted to briefly summarize my comments, which I used as a springboard to introduce several parent-led education reform initiatives. My goal was to provide an analysis of the ways in which the American system of education tends to disempower many parents, and to share some ideas about how we might reverse that pattern and give parents far more influence and voice in the education of their own children.

The COVID crisis, and especially the long-term shuttering of schools, has revealed to many ordinary parents and citizens just how inefficient our educational system is, how much it struggles to respond quickly to changing circumstances, and how it inevitably turns toward one-size-fits-all solutions. I'm not at all suggesting that teachers haven't worked hard over the last year. I certainly know how much many of them have worried over how to provide for their students' learning needs. But teachers themselves are hamstrung by the massive bureaucratic structures that make it virtually impossible for innovative and well-meaning teachers to easily adapt instructional delivery to new challenges.

This organizational recalcitrance is directly related to the fact that educational institutions function as a monopoly for most parents. While affluent families can often get some relief by buying houses in the school districts or attendance zones of their choice, most families have to take whatever educational program the local district offers them based on their zip code. But the last year has revealed how even affluent parents have little power, especially in large, unionized school districts. Despite overwhelming evidence that schools can safely open, our largest urban districts have mostly refused to consider even a hybrid learning model. Time and again we see that the interests of employees and their ideological agendas are the single biggest determinate of what happens in schools. The result is that, for all of the well-intended efforts and massive expenditures of money, the education system does not work for many families. 

What would it mean to shift some of the power and influence in education toward parents and ordinary taxpayers? First, it would mean enacting meaningful school choice measures so that every family, regardless of their income, could have more options in who educates their children and how. Currently HB 149, which encourages private donations to Education Opportunity Accounts that would help eligible families access private school options, is sitting in the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee. Lawmakers need to be encouraged to push this bill across the finish line and make the first meaningful dent in the monopoly power currently enjoyed by government schools. And then a host of other school choice provisions should be considered, including open district enrollment, and charter schools.

But even within the existing structures of education there is more that could be done to empower parents, including reforming Kentucky's Scho0l-Based Decision-Making Councils. Under current law, teacher members of SBMD councils outnumber parents, and non-parent citizens have no voting representation on councils at all. This means that SBDM Councils are essentially accountable to no one but the certified teachers in a school building, even though they wield sole authority over curriculum decisions and outsized influence over the hiring of school principals.

Finally, we need active, well-informed, and energized parent groups to advocate for meaningful education reform and district accountability. Every community deserves a vibrant coalition of parents and community members willing to work with educators to hold schools more accountable to parent concerns, engage in lobbying school boards and lawmakers, and ultimately organize and support candidates to run for school board seats and give the entire community as much say over what happens in schools as district employees currently enjoy. 

Happily, several such parent organizations have been organized here in Kentucky, many of them enjoying a surge of interest because of the prolonged, COVID-related school shutdowns. Last night I was able to introduce representatives from and highlight the work of the following groups:

• No Left Turn in Education. NLTE is a national organization of parents and educators assembled to resist the relentless push to impose leftist, critical theory ideology in American schools. Countless examples of this trend abound, and NLTE's Kentucky chapter will work to shine a light on how this is happening here, and how teachers, students, parents, and community members can respond.
• Kentucky Parents Network represents a coalition of parents advocating for school choice.
• Parent Power Kentucky arose from several local organizations formed to encourage schools to reopen for business. Parent Power will serve as a coalition of parental advocacy groups focused on choice, reform, supports for students with special needs, and direct advocacy to lawmakers and local boards of education.

I encourage educators and others to follow these groups on social media and offer your financial support and gifts of time and talent to help make them successful.

On a final note, I am sometimes asked why, as someone whose career is primarily in service to public education, I spend so much more time advocating for families and reform instead of the institutional interests of schools and districts. My answer is that the education establishment, directly funded by taxpayers themselves, is the most powerful lobby in state capitols, using its enormous influence to prevent meaningful reform and often keep parents disempowered. I don't want to choose sides between parents and schools, between communities and districts, because I believe that in the long run, doing what is right for students will work out to be in the best interests of educators as well, though it may mean we have to significantly change the way we do business. 

For that reason, I want to give as much encouragement and support to these parent groups as I can, and I hope others will also.

 

Will Republican lawmakers squander this golden opportunity for school choice?

Earlier this week the online newspaper Kentucky Today published an opinion piece in which I argued that, after the recent blow-out election benefitting Republicans in the state legislature, the time has never been better to promote school choice:

The Republican hold on Kentucky’s legislature expanded dramatically in this month’s election with the GOP picking up additional seats in both the state House and Senate. But will their super-super majority make a difference in one of the places many Kentucky families need it the most – expanding their educational options?

The COVID-19 crisis has vividly illustrated how hard it is for the public education system to respond to rapidly changing circumstances and its tendency to default to “one-size-fits-all” options has been on full display. With mounting evidence that schools are not the source of major COVID outbreaks, thousands of parents are eager to send their kids back to school, but most simply do not have that option.

I go on to argue for three different school choice policies that other states currently enjoy and Kentucky should quickly adopt: a) open district enrollment, b) scholarship tax credits, and c) charter schools. Of course, the education establishment will ferociously oppose all of these mechanisms for giving parents more options in who educates their children:

If educators believe schools need more money, they should lobby the legislature for it (as they inevitably will and always do). What they should not do is bar the schoolhouse doors to prevent children from leaving when another school can better meet their needs...

[E]very election in recent memory has proven that Republican legislators can take hard votes and challenge the status quo. Far from punishing them, voters have rewarded the GOP with more and more control of the General Assembly. Especially in light of school shutdowns related to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s time for Kentucky lawmakers to finally use that power on behalf of the state’s children and families.

Read the whole thing here.

Related posts:

• The fight for school choice in Kentucky goes on
• How much do scholarship tax credits "cost" public schools?
• Remarks at the 2019 Western Kentucky School Choice Rally

The fight for school choice in Kentucky goes on

The Kentucky General Assembly is wrapping up its legislative session, and for two years in a row, lawmakers have utterly failed Kentucky families on the issue of expanding education options. But the lonely champions of parental, student, and teacher empowerment will carry on their struggle against the education establishment until every family has the opportunity to choose a school that best meets their child's needs. And I'll proudly count myself among them.

After passing a charter school law in 2017, lawmakers refused to approve a funding formula that would actually allow charter schools to open in Kentucky. And while we had great support in the state Senate and among House leadership for scholarship tax credits, a handful of House Republicans prevented the bill from coming to a vote, despite solid survey data demonstrating widespread voter support for the policy. 

The education establishment proved itself again to be the most powerful, well-organized lobby in Frankfort. Even though they exercised no meaningful impact in the last statewide election cycle, and even though teachers are a diverse group that do not speak with one voice on any issue, some Republican lawmakers remain fearful of voting against the wishes of superintendents and educator groups. And thus Kentucky remains one of only a handful of states with no meaningful school choice policies. Families may not choose a charter school, districts strictly control access to traditional public schools, and a vast number of families are unable to afford tuition when a private school might best meet the needs of their child.

The education establishment fought ferociously against charters and scholarship tax credits, voicing a number of specious and sometimes blatantly false claims about these policies, but their highest-leverage argument was that education in Kentucky is grossly under-funded, and therefore we cannot "afford" to let parents choose an alternative to the local public schools.

I agree that we need to invest more money in education in Kentucky, and in an upcoming post I'll explore the complexities of that issue. But I reject the argument that we can't "afford" policies that help parents choose their child's school, in large part because I reject the idea that education dollars are for institutions. They are for the benefit of students, and within the realm of public schools (which includes charters), those dollars should be able to follow kids to the school of their choice, within parameters of accountability established in well-considered law and regulation. In this way, education should be like other highly-personal public goods such as health care and higher education (see more in the related links below about this argument).

I greatly antagonized many fellow educators this legislative session by publicly pointing out that their core goal here is to maintain their functional monopoly on education delivery. They seek to bar the door from families choosing another education provider because they place a greater value on the education dollars those children represent to their schools. I don't question the sincerity of their motives in doing so. They appear to truly believe such a monopoly is the best method for providing an equitable, high-quality education for all students. I just fundamentally disagree. 

And I will continue to do so. I will continue to work and speak and write in support of policy and advocacy groups demanding high-quality charter schools, scholarship tax credits, and the right of students to enroll in any public school with an open seat. Even when it brings ridicule and scorn and personal attacks from people who I consider colleagues and allies and with whom I share common overall goals. It's a sad commentary that so many educators regard those who have differing opinions about school choice or pension reform or other issues as enemies of public education. There's an awful lot of room for people of goodwill to believe in different strategies for achieving the same goal.

Interestingly, I never intended for school choice to be my signature professional issue. I spend most of my professional energy training the next generation of public school administrators and conducting research into leadership and school improvement. I have deep passions for curriculum, personalized learning, better assessment practices, and helping educators develop reflective tools for improving their craft. These are the topics I'd much prefer to spend my time on.

But the fundamental injustice at work in our educational delivery system keeps me fighting on for school choice, even when it comes at some cost to me professionally. More than two decades in this business has proven to me that no school, no matter how good, can be a perfect fit for every child. Empowering families of modest means to select their child's school is not only good for kids; it's also liberating to teachers and school leaders who can be far more innovative in their approaches to curriculum and instruction instead of relentlessly being pushed into a one-size-fits-all system. But first and foremost it's about giving lower-income children opportunities they otherwise cannot access.

Contrary to anti-school choice rhetoric, there is no well-funded, organized lobby on behalf of the families who are the primary beneficiaries of school choice policies, which is why it's so difficult to complete against the powerful education establishment. Those families need a voice. And on this issue they need a voice from educators willing to stand up to their own colleagues and institutions and challenge their assumptions and arguments.

I'll try my best to always do so with civility, seeking common ground wherever possible, but without compromising the fundamental conviction that every family deserves to decide who educates their children. And I welcome every Kentuckian, educators included, to join me.

See you in Frankfort.

Usual disclaimer: All views expressed on this website are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of anyone else affiliated with Western Kentucky University (where I am professor of educational administration, leadership, and research), or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I am a member and chairman of the Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Committee).

Related posts:

• Kentucky school administrator group is also mistaken about scholarship tax credits
• Prichard Committee gets it wrong on scholarship tax credits
• Why I support scholarship tax credits for Kentucky - and you should too
• Does giving parents education options "divert money" from public schools?
• Why the education establishment feels so threatened by school choice
• Is education in Kentucky "under attack?"
• Kentucky charter school basics
• A School Choice Primer, Parts I, II, and III

How much do scholarship tax credits "cost" public schools?

The battle to give more Kentucky families choices in who educates their children rages on, as lawmakers continue to consider a scholarship tax credit bill, introduced to the legislature this year as HB 205/SB 118. Eighteen other states have such a policy, which creates a tax credit that encourages private donations to scholarship that help eligible families pay tuition at non-public schools. 

I've written extensively about how this policy works, how it does not threaten public education, how it does not violate the state or federal constitutions, and how it uses private money to give more families the chance to find a school that best meets their child's needs, the same kind of privilege affluent parents enjoy every day. You can read some of my most recent posts on these topics here, here, and here.

As to be expected, the education establishment in Kentucky has ferociously opposed scholarship tax credits, arguing that education is underfunded and a reduction in state revenues would further harm public schools, despite an abundance of analyses that show such policies work out to be revenue neutral in other states. Superintendents have argued that they would be terribly burdened even if only a handful of students left their assigned public school because they have fixed costs that cannot easily be absorbed.

Many of these arguments are condensed in a blog post by Anna Baumann of the Kentucky Economic Policy Center, an organization that opposes school choice policies. Ms. Baumann makes three major claims: 1) the cost savings of scholarship tax credits depends on the number of students switching from public to nonpublic schools; 2) schools will suffer because of the "fixed costs" argument noted above if students do switch, and 3) the income eligibility level for families applying for scholarships under this proposal is too high.

In this post I'd like to respond to some of these specific claims. As always, let me be clear that views I express on this website are mine alone do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone else affiliated with Western Kentucky University (where I am professor of educational administration, leadership, and research) or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I am a member and chair of the Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Committee).

First, regarding switchers, this issue is only relevant for calculating cost savings at the state level (not the district level). What we know from other states is the switcher rate does not impact the bottom line on state-level fiscal impact - which is that the state winds up saving money in the long run because of this tax credit. And that is the case regardless of whether students switch or choose private school from the kindergarten forward. Any time families opt out of public schools, you generate a net savings because these families continue to pay taxes but the state doesn't have to educate their kids. Currently there are about 72,000 kids in Kentucky who attend private or homeschools. If they all showed up tomorrow wanting a public education, we'd need almost an extra $300 million a year. That's almost 3% of the state's general fund. Scholarship tax credits do not drain revenues from public schools that would otherwise be used to increase education spending.

At the district level things get a little more complicated, because when a local school is no longer educating a student, they no longer get state education dollars (SEEK funds) for the student (and shouldn't; they aren't educating him/her any more). Note that every argument that follows from the anti-choice crowd is essentially based on the idea that these students shouldn't be allowed to leave, because this will generate a loss of revenue for the district. I reject that kind of thinking outright.

But taking the fact of lost revenues seriously, it is still unclear what impact this has on students who stay. If large numbers of students leave, then you actually increase the likelihood of the district being able to reap savings through reduced fixed expenses (cuts to personnel and other large overhead costs), which contradicts Ms. Baumann's argument. And if large numbers leave, you don't have a school choice problem; you have an internal problem to the school that is causing so many families to want another alternative. Moreover, we know that per-pupil calculations are the most relevant revenue/cost issue at hand for schools (rather than fixed costs) because that's why we fund schools based on enrollment.

If small numbers of students leave (which is much more likely), on the other hand, then we're talking about management adjustments that districts can and should be able deal with all the time. You can, in fact, reduce some expenses when small numbers of students leave (fewer software licenses, instructional materials, etc.), but unless you're willing to argue that no student should ever be able to leave a school, districts must have the management sense to deal with small enrollment fluctuations. And they do.

When I looked at this issue in the past, I tried to apply some of this to a specific example: the Warren County School district, one of my two local districts. For FY 16, that district had $122 million in revenues; only $47 million of that was from SEEK (Kentucky's state per pupil educational allotment), or 38.5%. 

Warren County has just under 15,000 students. It's anybody's guess as to how many students would leave for a private school if a scholarship opportunity presented itself thanks to scholarship tax credits, but currently there appear to be less than 1,000 students attending private schools in the county. Let's be extremely generous and assume that STC increases local private school enrollment by 10%. That means no more than 100 students leave the district (this isn't taking in account students who may leave other nearby districts instead). Warren County's FY 16 adjusted SEEK allocation was $3,647 per student. So SEEK funding for the district would decline by about $364,700...which accounts for only .002% of the district's revenues. And in a district of 15,000, I suspect total enrollment fluctuates by far more than 100 from year to year.

Perhaps I have more faith in our superintendents' abilities to manage such tiny budget changes than they do themselves. And if my math is incorrect here, I'm sure helpful readers will point that out. But even if my calculations are slightly off, the point remains: scholarship tax credits are not going to decimate the budgets of local schools.

What Ms. Baumann's analysis also doesn't consider in terms of costs at the local level is that parents who use private schools still pay local school taxes, partially offsetting any "loss" to the local district (which wasn't due those SEEK dollars to begin with!). This is an incalculable number of course, because it's based on the amount of taxes paid by each family. But it further illustrates the fact that the costs to districts for "switchers" or "never users" is small and should be something they can deal with. Districts are never in a position to do anything about affluent families who choose another option. It's only when it comes to policies like this that they try to stop families of more modest means from leaving. Which brings me to the last point of Ms. Baumann's blog post.

Scholarships funded by the private donations encouraged by HB 205 are needs based. Dollars go to the neediest families first and the bill puts kids with special needs, foster care kids, and kids on free or reduced lunch first in line. If money is left over, scholarships may then go to families whose income rises to 200% of the FRL level (remember this is all privately-donated money). Typically these families don't need full scholarships, but may need a little extra help making the full tuition payment, especially if they have more than one child in school. We can get into endless arguments about who is "upper income," but the fact is that, in my old school district, two married teachers with two kids are too "rich" to qualify for any scholarship help under this bill after just 5 years of teaching service if they also happen to have Master's degrees.

Conventional wisdom holds (and I agree), that teachers are underpaid, and yet the Courier-Journal reports the average Kentucky teacher salary is just under $54,000 per year ($63K in JCPS); the vast majority of teacher households would never be eligible for even a tiny bit of scholarship help under this proposal. The bottom line is that scholarship tax credits benefit families who otherwise could never access these schooling options.

At the end of the day, the argument that we should oppose school choice because education is underfunded is an excuse to defend local school districts' monopoly on education delivery. Scholarship tax credits will not cause damage to public schools, and ultimately the education establishment is always going to oppose school choice policies, no matter how much we increase education spending. Philosophically, many superintendents and teacher groups are just opposed to giving families choices in who educates their kids. They can't do anything about affluent families who always have the resources to make choices for their children, so they oppose policy mechanisms that help those who don't.

To help these families we'll always have to do it over the opposition of educator groups. That's a shame, but that's the way it is, and I'm willing to stand up to colleagues I admire and with whom I otherwise share so many common goals, and disagree.

Update, 3/8/2019: I keep hearing repeated arguments that scholarship tax credits are somehow a violation of either Kentucky's Constitution or the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution. This allegation seems to be premised on the notion that tax credits use "public" money to support private, religious schools. 

If the opponents of scholarship tax credits think this policy uses "public" money to support religious schools, then I hope they didn't take a charitable deduction on their taxes for any donations to their church or other religious organizations. By their own logic, this, too, would be using "public" money to support religion. But it is not of course.

If you don't want to allow a tax credit because you simply don't like what people are going to do with their own money if they get to keep more of it (in this case, use it to help kids afford private school tuition), that's at least a logical position. But it is NOT the same thing as using "public" money to support religious schools, anymore than your charitable deduction for church donations is. (Which is why scholarship tax credits have withstood multiple constitutional challenges).

Related posts:

• Kentucky school administrator group is also mistaken about scholarship tax credits
• Prichard Committee gets it wrong on scholarship tax credits
• Remarks at the 2019 Western Kentucky school choice rally
• Why I support scholarship tax credits for Kentucky - and you should too
• Does giving parents education options "divert money" from public schools?
• Expand educational options for Kentucky families with scholarship tax credits
• EdChoice Kentucky advocates more schooling options for all families
• A School Choice Primer, Parts I, II, and III

 

Kentucky school administrator group is also mistaken about scholarship tax credits

The Kentucky Association of School Administrators, which represents principals, district administrators, and superintendents across the state, is actively lobbying lawmakers to oppose a bill that would help families obtain more education options for their children. In doing so, they are spreading misinformation and attempting to hold children hostage to their schools because they value the perceived financial benefit of preventing those students from having options over empowering families with additional education choices.

HB 205 and SB 118, recently introduced in the Kentucky legislature, would create a tax credit encouraging private donations to scholarship programs that help eligible low- and middle-income children attend tuition-based schools. I've written about the mechanics of this policy elsewhere, but in brief here's how it works.

Many families believe their children would be best served in a private school, rather than their assigned public school, but simply cannot afford the full cost of tuition. Private scholarship programs exist to help these families, but the documented need far outstrips current donations. A credit has tax advantages over the normal charitable deduction for such donations and therefore encourages individuals and businesses to give more generously to scholarship programs. But please note HB 205 and SB 118 establish this as a non-refundable credit, which means no donor can actually get money back on his/her taxes through this program. The full benefit goes to the students, and the bills stipulate that priority must be given to foster children, children with disabilities, and students who are eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch.

Eighteen other states have scholarship tax credit programs that have been shown to have a neutral or even positive financial impact on the state and have yielded positive academic outcomes for participating students. But Kentucky's education establishment has come out swinging hard against HB 205/SB 118 in an effort to block these students from having new education choices. Unfortunately they are also making claims about these bills that include inaccuracies or seemingly deliberate omissions of relevant information.

The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, once a highly-regarded education advocacy group, has opposed the bill while ignoring its potential benefits. See my response to Prichard's position here.

Today leadership from the Kentucky Association of School Administrators contacted their members by email urging them to call lawmakers to oppose HB 205/SB 118. Below I would like to respond to some of the talking points KASA suggested members use in their communication.

But first I want to say that as a professional educator with a background in school administration, I am a long-standing member and supporter of KASA. Today I maintain an associate membership in KASA as a university professor training the next generation of public school leaders. KASA does vitally important work in helping school leaders get the professional development, networking, and advocacy support they need. I have enormous personal admiration and respect for KASA members and their leadership. They just happen to be mistaken on this particular issue, and I hope to persuade them accordingly, or at least help the public understand the facts about scholarship tax credits.

Let me also point out that I serve on the board of directors for EdChoice Kentucky, a non-profit coalition advocating for scholarship tax credits. And as always, opinions expressed here are mine alone and do not reflect the views of Western Kentucky University (where I work) or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I serve as a member).

Now to some of KASA's claims about HB 205/SB 118:

First, KASA claims that "The real financial impact of the scholarship tax credit is that it costs Kentucky $60 million dollars over the first three years, and costs continue to go up after that. That number is from LRC financial analysts, not an advocacy group." But just like the Prichard Committee, KASA is flatly ignoring the fact that the Legislative Research Commission (LRC) is prohibited from calculating potential costs savings to bills under consideration. And in the case of scholarship tax credits, over 40 studies from other states have demonstrated that such policies actually save taxpayers money overall. The proof for this exists in Kentucky already, where 72,000 school-aged children already attend non-public schools or are educated at home. If these students showed up asking for a public school education, the state would spend almost $300 million more per year. So yes, state revenues are reduced by tax credits, but in the case of scholarship tax credits, state education spending is also reduced by a similar or even greater amount.

Second, KASA claims, "Functionally, tax credits are the same as direct vouchers, which are prohibited by the Kentucky Constitution. This is back door method of achieving an otherwise unconstitutional result." This is flatly false. The scholarship donations encouraged by this tax credit proposal use only private dollars and have withstood multiple constitutional challenges mounted in other states.

Third, KASA claims, "A decline in student enrollment in a district does not save money, as claimed by out-of-state tax credit advocacy groups. It costs local school districts money. Fixed costs remain the same, but revenue declines. Students moving move from public schools to private schools by using tax credit vouchers represents a death spiral for public schools." This argument requires a bit more nuanced response, although the hyperbolic claim of a "death spiral for public schools" is easily dismissed.

First of all, if a sizable number of students moved from public to private schools utilizing scholarships, the immediate response of educators should be, "What is going wrong here? Why do so many families (especially low-income families) not want the service we are providing?" The focus should be on fixing the internal problems of the school, not barring the door to prevent families from having another option. Secondly, a large decline in enrollment could indeed yield cost savings if it translated into reductions in staffing and instructional materials costs. But more importantly, evidence from other states suggests that the number of students utilizing such scholarships is remarkably small at the district level - likely no more than 1 to 1.5 percent in a year, which is an enrollment fluctuation well within a manageable range for the vast majority of school districts. 

It is a fact that if schools are no longer educating a child, they will not receive state education dollars for that child (nor should they if they are no longer tasked with educating the student). And yes, there are some fixed costs schools face that aren't easily adjusted. But it is also a fact that parents of those children will continue to support local schools through occupational and property taxes, which partially (if not completely) offsets some of those losses. The capacity of schools to absorb these reductions in SEEK dollars will vary from school to school and depending on the number of students who switch, but there is little evidence that a "death spiral" will result.

More importantly, let's be clear about the implicit rationale KASA and other opponents of parental choice in education are using here: they are willing to tell families, "Your children may not leave," because they don't want to give up the state education dollars associated with that child.  And they can only say this to families of modest incomes, because affluent parents can always exercise school choice by buying homes in their preferred school zones or paying tuition.

The one thing I agree with KASA on is that education is generally under-funded in Kentucky at the state level. Part of this is because of the enormous sums of money required to shore up the state's ailing pension system. But pensions aside, we do need a greater investment in education in this state. However, I believe that education dollars are first and foremost for the education of students, not to prop up or support specific institutions of learning. Families deserve a choice in who educates their children, because while education is one the most basic public goods, it is also an intensely personal good in that the needs and interests and aspirations of every child and family differ so greatly. Affluent families already have such choices. Policies like scholarship tax credits simply foster new options for families who don't have such choices already, and do so with minimal to no impact on public schools.

Personally, I am not willing to deny other parents (who are disproportionately minority and lower-income) the same choices my own family has enjoyed simply because I want more education funding overall for Kentucky. Doing so would be like denying Medicaid patients their choice of health care provider (another intensely personal choice) simply because the program is not sufficiently funded (or denying Pell grant recipients their choice of college/university, etc.).

I'll stand with KASA in calling for more education spending in Kentucky. But I will have to part ways with them when they try to deny some families meaningful education options until spending reaches their desired level, especially when they make unfair claims about the impact such choices will have on public schools. As educators, let's prioritize doing what's in the best interest of children first and stop forcing the public into false choices between having good schools and giving every family a chance to pick a school that is best for their kids.

Related posts:

• Prichard Committee gets it wrong on scholarship tax credits
• Why I support scholarship tax credits for Kentucky - and you should too
• Does giving parents education options "divert money" from public schools?
• Expand educational options for Kentucky families with scholarship tax credits
• Scholarship tax credits: Kentucky's best chance for school choice
• EdChoice Kentucky advocates more schooling options for all families
• A School Choice Primer, Parts I, II, and III

Prichard Committee gets it wrong on scholarship tax credits

The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, one of Kentucky's most influential education advocacy organizations with roots in the state's historic education reform act of 1990, has decided to take a position on scholarship tax credits, a proposal that would encourage private donations for scholarships that help children access the school of their choice. Unfortunately, the Prichard Committee gets it completely wrong on this issue, ignoring clear evidence that scholarship tax programs tend to have a fiscally neutral or even positive impact on state budgets and positive impacts on student learning outcomes. Sadly, an organization that prides itself on citizen empowerment in education is helping perpetuate a system that routinely denies some families the right to select a school that is the best fit for their children - a privilege affluent families enjoy and practice every single day.

Disclosure: I serve on the board of directors for EdChoice Kentucky, a non-profit coalition advocating for scholarship tax credits; Disclaimer: as always, opinions expressed here are mine alone and do not reflect the views of Western Kentucky University (where I work) or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I serve as a member).

I have written extensively about how scholarship tax credits work. For background on the technical elements of the policy, please see this post from last year and the related links at the bottom of the post.

The key flaw in the Prichard Committee's position on this issue, expressed on their blog yesterday, is the claim that such a tax credit would eventually "cost" the state $200 million in revenues, funds that are better spent on other much-needed education initiatives. This assertion is based on a review of last year's unsuccessful scholarship tax credit bill by the Legislative Research Commission, charged with estimating the cost of various proposals. The problem is that the LRC is not permitted to calculate potential savings to the state for proposed legislation. Prichard Committee leaders know this, and yet still present the issue as if this particular tax credit has no potential benefits for state coffers.

Scholarship tax credits give children who otherwise could not attend a tuition-based school the chance to do so. Based on the experience of other states, Kentucky would likely see a 1 to 1.5 percent switch of students from public schools to non-public schools in the first year of implementation. When students don't attend public schools, the state is not required to spend education dollars on them (while local property tax revenues remain stable). To illustrate the point, currently about 72,000 school age children in Kentucky are not enrolled in public schools (they are homeschooled or attend tuition-based schools). If these students all showed up wanting a public school education, the state would have to come up with approximately $287 million extra dollars each year. So students choosing a nonpublic school option actually save the state money and increasing that number would further this savings.

Families in 17 other states enjoy the benefits of scholarship tax credits. Over 40 research studies have examined the impact of these policies on state budgets and every one of them found either a net neutral or positive fiscal impact. Not a single study finds a negative financial impact on the state. Again, the Prichard Committee often prides itself on the use of research to support education policy, and should know better than to ignore such evidence.

The Prichard blog also claimed there was no evidence that scholarship tax credits positively impact student learning, but only selectively cite studies about school vouchers, a policy that may have the same intended effects as tax credits (expanding parental choice for needy families), but are in no way structured or financed in the same way. This too is irresponsible, and ignores research from Florida, which hosts the nation's largest scholarship tax credit program, finding that students who benefited from the program had higher rates of college attendance than their demographically-similar peers. Earlier research found that student achievement in public schools improved when the school was in close proximity to schools attended by scholarship students.

Certainly more research needs to be done on the achievement effects of school choice policies, but it is disingenuous for Prichard to make this claim about scholarship tax credits when research finding positive effects clearly exists.

If the Prichard Committee wants to avoid taking a policy position because they believe there is insufficient research to support it, I respect that decision. But to actively advocate against a policy that has real potential benefits for children while pretending no evidence exists in its favor deeply undermines the credibility of the organization.

There is absolutely no reason to believe there is a conflict between giving all families the same kinds of education options as affluent families and providing a strong public education for everyone who wants it. The Prichard Committee should know better.

Related posts:

• Why I support scholarship tax credits for Kentucky - and you should too
• Does giving parents education options "divert money" from public schools?
• Expand educational options for Kentucky families with scholarship tax credits
• Scholarship tax credits: Kentucky's best chance for school choice
• EdChoice Kentucky advocates more schooling options for all families
• A School Choice Primer, Parts I, II, and III

Remarks at the 2019 Western Kentucky School Choice Rally

It's National School Choice Week, and today I was honored to be a speaker at the second annual Western Kentucky School Choice Rally held in Madisonville. While some of the schools we were expecting didn't make it due to snow closures, we still had over 250 students and faculty members from schools across the Western part of the state.

In my comments I tried to emphasize the fundamental unfairness that affluent families already exercise school choice every day, while low-income families often have far fewer, if any, options. The full text of my speech follows:

Good morning, everyone! I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here with all of you, especially you students. Just yesterday we celebrated the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a man committed to equality of opportunity for every person, regardless of their income or skin color. And in celebrating school choice we extend Dr. King’s legacy of demanding for social justice by giving every family the right to choose a school that is the best fit for their family. It’s a great cause we celebrate today, and I thank you for being here.

I’m pleased to share this podium today with other great champions of school choice, including Rep. Melinda Prunty, who I am going to invite to the microphone momentarily.

First I want to say a few words about what brings ME here today. I have the good fortune to travel the state and visit schools and students and community members all over the Commonwealth in my role as a member of the Kentucky Board of Education and as a professor of education administration. But today I am not here in either of those roles. Today I’m speaking to you as a dad and as a lifelong educator and advocate for great schools.

First and most proudly, I’m a dad. My kids attend St. Joseph School in Bowling Green and I’m absolutely delighted to see a great delegation from St. Joe’s here at this rally today. Make some noise Saints!

My kids love attending St. Joseph School. But I want you to understand that my wife and I did not choose St. Joe’s for our children because we believe it’s BETTER than the other schools in our community. We are very blessed in Bowling Green to have outstanding public schools, private faith based schools, and even a private Montessori school.

We chose St. Joseph simply because it’s the best fit for OUR kids. And we deeply respect the right of other parents who have chosen other schools because that’s the best fit for THEIR kids.

The problem is that there are many children for which St. Joseph or some other school WOULD be the best fit but they can’t get access because their families can’t afford tuition, or because the scholarship funds to help lower income families are insufficient, or in the case of public schools, they often can’t get access to their best-fit school because of where they live.

Friends, that situation is wrong. EVERY family should have access to the school that best meets their child’s needs. EVERY family, regardless of their income or their ZIP code deserves the same opportunities that my family has enjoyed.

So as a DAD, that’s why I support school choice.

But I also support school choice as a public school educator. Some people mistakenly believe that when we call for school choice we are somehow undermining public education. But nothing could be further from the truth. Friends, this is my 22nd year working in education. I’ve worked as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, and district administrator. Other than 3 precious years I spent in Catholic education, all of those years have been in the service of public schools. Today I train teachers who will someday be principals in public schools. I am absolutely committed to strong, well-funded public schools because I believe they are and always will be the first CHOICE of schools for most families.

But friends, I’ve worked in schools long enough to know that it’s impossible for any school, no matter how good, to be a perfect fit for EVERY child. We place an impossible burden on hard-working educators when we ask them to do what cannot be done. The needs and interests of children and their families are simply too diverse to expect a single school to be all things to all people.

We should have MANY different schooling models in every community with an interest level to support them: STEM-oriented academies, faith-based schools, project-based learning, classical education, Montessori - these are all education approaches that have their place and appeal - for SOME children and families.

Families with money can usually get access to these options. Why is it okay to deny low-income families a choice of schools? There are many children who would be here with you TODAY, except the system denies them a choice of schools because of where they live or how much money their parents make.

Friends, this is not okay. For me as a dad, I’m here to say it’s not okay. For me as an educator, I’m here to say it’s not okay. We are all here because we believe in public policies that EMPOWER families with the ability to do what’s best for their own children, just like I did for mine, just like EVERY affluent family in this state can do for theirs.

So we’re not here today to celebrate school choice for my children, or for any of the students who are here today. No, we’re here representing the voices of those students and families who CANNOT be here, whose voice cannot be heard, who is denied the same privilege the rest of us have enjoyed.

This dad and educator wants to thank you today for standing up for EVERY Kentucky family, every school, and every teacher who wants to do the best they can for the children they serve!

The statewide School Choice Week Rally will be held in Frankfort on Thursday, January 24. Will hope to update with more photos and comments then.

Usual disclaimer: Views expressed on this website are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of any affiliated with Western Kentucky University (where I am professor of educational administration, leadership, and research) or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I am a member and serve as chair of the Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment committee).

Related posts:

• Why I support scholarship tax credits for Kentucky, and you should too
• Does giving parents education options "divert money" from public schools?
• Expand educational options for Kentucky families with scholarship tax credits
• Scholarship tax credits: Kentucky's best chance for school choice
• EdChoice Kentucky advocates more schooling options for all families
• A School Choice Primer, Parts I, II, and III

The false choices of "What School Could Be"

Ted Dintersmith's new book, What School Could Be, profiles dozens of schools across the United States that are engaging students in rich, real-world learning, and contrasts their experiences with the vast majority of other schools. Dintersmith calls on schools to innovate in ways that closely parallel some of my own frustrations and desires for education in Kentucky and beyond. But unfortunately the vision of What Schools Could Be is wrapped up in a badly overstated diagnosis about what ails us. Dintersmith reinforces dangerous, false choices that all too commonly frame our debates about schooling and mostly obscure, rather than clarify, the path forward.

Dintersmith, an entrepreneur and former representative to the United Nations General Assembly under President Obama, is best known as co-author with Tony Wagner of Most Likely to Succeed and producer of the documentary film by the same name. Last year he was honored by the National Education Association with its Friend of Education Award, the group's highest recognition. What School Could Be extends the themes of Most Likely To Succeed, arguing that students are too often bored, that teachers focus too narrowly on annual test score increases, and that schools are failing to adequately prepare students for the economic and social realities of the 21st century. On all counts, I agree.

To look for alternatives, Dintersmith spent a year traveling to all 50 states, touring schools and conducting hundreds of interviews with students, teachers, parents, and education policy leaders. In every state he found exciting examples of schools taking students to a different place of learning, especially at the high school level, like the Big Picture Learning network of schools which focus on meaningful career preparation, the Albermarle schools in Virginia which are pioneering project-based learning as the focal point of the school experience, and the Eminence Independent Schools here in Kentucky, the state’s first officially recognized District of Innovation.

What unites these examples, according to Dintersmith, are a combination of factors he calls “PEAK principles:”

• Purpose - Student attack challenges they know to be important, that make their world better.
• Essentials - Students acquire the skill sets and mind-sets needed in an increasingly innovative world.
• Agency - Students own their learning, becoming self-directed, intrinsically motivated adults.
• Knowledge - What students learn is deep and retained, enabling them to create, to make, to teach others.

In addition to these PEAK principles, and the many school profiles he offers to illustrate them, Dintersmith makes some important points about how education in the U.S. has, in the recent past, over-emphasized the idea of college for all students with several detrimental effects, and suggests that popular, misguided policies like “free” college serve to reinforce those problems. In one short but potent chapter, Dintersmith also argues effectively that parents and schools have infantilized adolescence, babying our children in various ways and shielding them from the kinds of challenges and hard problem solving they will actually face in the real world. If nothing else, schooling should at least prepare students to be independent, self-sufficient citizens.

The arguments about college and creating more independent learners are valuable, if perhaps a little dated and argued more effectively elsewhere by other authors. The best part of the book, though, are the profiles of innovative schools, and had Dintersmith let that be his primary focus, What School Could Be would be a useful tool for practicing educators. Unfortunately, Dintersmith tries to make his book about education policy, seeking a bogeyman to blame for why schools aren’t what they could be and making an endless stream of poorly-supported claims and straw man arguments that distract immensely from the book’s usefulness.

Dintersmith wants to force educators and parents into a series of false choices, and framing the problems our schools face in these artificial binaries may actually undermine the long-term effectiveness of the innovations he longs to see enacted.

False Choice #1: Accountability versus Innovation

According to Dintersmith, the number one reason why schools aren’t what they could be is because of standardized testing. Such tests measure only a small portion of what schools seek to accomplish with their students, but because of accountability pressures teachers devote the vast majority of their time to low-level skills that, he claims, get the biggest test score increases, and neglect rich, engaging, real-world learning.

The author is not completely wrong here. The modern era of federally-mandated school accountability (which came into being with 2002’s No Child Left Behind Act) has caused an narrowing of curricular focus and a long-term neglect of the kinds of meaningful, whole school reform efforts that would make a sustainable difference in student achievement. But Dintersmith completely mischaracterizes the purpose of these accountability mechanisms and the long history of morally unacceptable achievement gaps.

Urgency and humility: A conservative philosophy of education reform

When I was first appointed to the Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) in 2016, I mused on the irony. As a professor of education administration, I was accustomed to telling my students (all aspiring school principals) to pay little attention to education policy or the workings of the state legislature or state board. School leaders spend way too much time fretting over the state accountability system or other mandates, all of which have an extremely indirect impact on student learning, and not nearly enough time on the building-level factors that actually make a difference in student achievement. That’s where I want my students to focus their efforts.

And then suddenly I was a member of the state board of education, helping make the policies I was telling practitioners not to worry with so much. At the time I argued that of course I believe policy does matter, but its function is in creating an environment where educational excellence can flourish by unleashing the innovative capacity of empowered teachers, parents, students, and local school and community leaders.

In the two years that have followed I’ve had many opportunities to reflect further on the tension between what we do at the state level and what happens at the local level in the larger effort to improve student learning. For example, when KBE was reworking the statewide school accountability system to conform with new federal guidelines, I cautioned fellow board members and education stakeholders that while we should build the best accountability system possible, we should not overestimate its capacity to actually accelerate student achievement. Only the work of local actors could make that happen, and the accountability system exists primarily to provide feedback on their efforts.

In April of this year several new members joined KBE as the terms of members appointed by the previous governor expired. These new members (several of whom I had worked with previously in their role as governor-appointed advisors to the board or in other capacities) have a refreshing and passionate urgency to press our educational system to much more rapid levels of improvement. While I am the only member of KBE to have served as a professional K-12 educator, these new members draw on their considerable experience as business and community leaders to provide new perspectives and ask demanding questions about our lackluster progress and how we can do better.

In our discussions about policy, I often find myself trying to explain the complexities of what educators do and the confounding, immeasurable, and often uncontrollable variables at work in the results. I anticipate that, as we move forward with our board agenda, I will often urge caution and careful consideration of sweeping policy ideas that, while well-intentioned, may not achieve the desired results and may ultimately do more harm than good. I expect to frequently advocate for giving educators more flexibility in their work and greater consideration of their perspectives and frustrations.

This is all good. I am grateful for board members who are fiercely dedicated to educational improvement, because no one should be satisfied with the results we are currently getting. Like everyone who has spent decades in a professional environment, I have my own blind spots where perhaps I have grown accustomed to the way we do things. I can readily admit that I’ve been wrong about certain educational ideas in the past and therefore I’m likely to be wrong about some of the ideas I currently hold as well.

But I also don’t want my reservations about state-level policy to come across as a defense of the educational status quo. Read virtually any post on my blog from the last eight years and it should be clear that I don’t endorse business as usual in education. I believe I was appointed to the KBE in the first place because of my advocacy for education reforms that might seriously disrupt the way we have traditionally thought about schooling. So I want to be clear, both for myself and others, what guides my thinking about the role of state policy, student learning, and the work of K-12 education.

In this extended post I’d like to unpack some of my thoughts about all this, first as an intellectual exercise for myself, but secondarily as a help to any education stakeholders interested in how we balance all the tensions we encounter while trying to make K-12 education far more effective than it has been in the past. As always, let me be clear that I speak strictly for myself, and no one else affiliated with the Kentucky Board of Education or my employer, Western Kentucky University.

We’re not getting better fast enough, for many reasons

The first thing to say is that the education system is, indeed, not getting the results we need. I won’t go into great detail about this as I’ve presented this argument elsewhere with data to demonstrate that, while Kentucky may be having some modest progress in certain areas of student achievement, the rate of improvement is so painfully slow that vast swaths of children will still be lacking in basic academic proficiency for generations to come. Of course there are serious limitations to what test scores can really tell us about student learning, but even with those limitations, our rate of progress (or lack thereof) is simply unacceptable.

Why are our schools not successfully meeting this challenge? The reasons are legion and no single cause accounts for a measurably larger explanation than others. Poverty certainly has a key role to play. There is overwhelming evidence that students who grow up in low-income homes face a multitude of learning challenges. A few bold voices have recently started naming the role of family breakdown (a phenomenon closely, but not exclusively, linked to poverty) as an enormous obstacle to student achievement. Sometimes educators want to blame low student performance exclusively on poverty and family instability, but this ignores the reality that there are schools serving high percentages of low-income students that are nevertheless getting strong results (updated: see this new New York Times piece on how Chicago schools are beating the odds with high percentages of students living in poverty). In my own experience, there are qualitative differences between high and low-performing schools in terms of learning processes and leadership decision-making that can explain more than poverty. But even when all those best practices are in place, it is demonstrably harder to accelerate learning with at-risk kids and schools have not been able to scale up a more rapid improvement in overall student achievement.