by Dick Hall-Sizemore
With the advent of another General Assembly session comes the annual school voucher bill. This version is HB 1508, introduced by Delegate Glenn Davis (R-Virginia Beach).
Touted as a way to enhance “the right of parents to decide the educational opportunity for their child,” the legislation has a tweak that makes it a little better than similar bills in past years. Nevertheless, in the end, the bill would benefit two groups: first, upper-and upper-middle-class parents who wish, and can afford, to send their children to private school; and, second, parents who home school their children.
The legislation would allow parents to establish an educational savings account into which the state would deposit the equivalent of “all applicable then-current annual Standards of Quality per pupil state funds, including the per pupil share of state sales tax funding in basic aid.” (The legislation is not clear whether this amount is the statewide per-pupil amount or the per-pupil amount for the jurisdiction in which the student lives, although it is implied that the per-pupil amount for the jurisdiction is the relevant amount.) Ninety-five percent of that deposit would be available to the parent to use for educational expenses, with the balance being available to pay the costs of administering the system.
Parents could use the funds in the account to cover the costs of tuition, fees, and textbooks at private schools, tutoring services, transportation, computer hardware and software, and any other education-related goods or services. The program would be administered by a third party under contract to the Department of the Treasury.
The bill has one feature that makes it a little more palatable than bills in previous years. To be eligible, a student must have attended public school for at least one semester immediately before the semester or term in which he initially applies for a savings account. An exception to this requirement would be students starting kindergarten or entering first grade for the first time. Therefore, parents whose children were already in private school or being homeschooled would not be able to take advantage of the savings accounts unless they put their children into public school for at least one semester.
Despite what its proponents may claim, it is unlikely that this bill would benefit economically disadvantaged (poverty level or lower-middle-class) students. Davis, the chief patron, estimated that parents could get an average of $6,300 per student. Annual tuition and fees at private schools around Richmond start at over $10,000 and top out at over $30,000, although there are some Christian schools that have tuition below $10,000. These costs do not include the cost of books, supplies, and uniforms. It is doubtful that a family with an annual income of even $75,000 could afford the difference between $6,300 and the tuition and other costs at one of these private schools, whereas a “power-couple” entering their child in the first grade in Collegiate School, for example, would get a subsidy of $6,300.
Parents homeschooling their children for the first time or after a one-semester sojourn in public school would be eligible, on average, for $6,300 per child to be used for books, instructional material, on-line courses, etc. Under the terms of the legislation, a home-schooling parent could conceivably designate himself or herself a “tutor” and get some compensation.
Perversely, the bill could result in less state funding for those school divisions that have a large number of parents who could not afford to send their kids to private school, even if subsidized. For example, if educational savings accounts were established for 100 students in Richmond, Petersburg, or Portsmouth, the affected jurisdiction would lose at least $630,000 in state funding, However, the costs of operating the schools in the jurisdiction would not be affected by that reduction of 100 students.
Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears attended the press conference introducing the bill. As reported by the Virginia Mercury, she explained, “What we are saying as parents is, ‘No more.’ We’re not going to do the same things and expect different results.” It would seem that she, as well as Del. Davis and his Republican co-patrons, do not have a lot of confidence in the Youngkin administration being able to effect much change in public education.
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