Voucher combatants behaving badly

Both sides are engaged in deceptive tactics.

In Arizona’s voucher battle, both sides are behaving badly and deceptively.

For orientation, here are my views.

I support universal vouchers as a matter of social justice. If the government is going to collect a pool of tax money to educate kids, parents who prefer private schools or homeschooling shouldn’t be excluded from a share of the common pool. Nor should such parents be excluded because they exceed some arbitrary income line. The public benefit of an educated citizen doesn’t evaporate because the citizen was educated in private schools or was homeschooled. Or because their parents made more than a particular sum.

However, taxpayers deserve some accounting for the funds so provided. Voucher students should take the same achievement tests as those attending government schools. That’s not currently required under Arizona’s universal voucher program.

There is also a glaring flaw in Arizona’s program regarding homeschooled students. These expenditures are approved after the fact. Parents submit claims for reimbursement. This has led to delays in approving legitimate expenses. And opened the door to spectacularly fraudulent claims which have attracted wide, and fully warranted, public indignation.

I’ve advocated that, instead, the state preapprove textbooks and other educational materials for each grade level, and limit homeschoolers to what the state has preapproved. No delays, no spectacularly fraudulent claims. No public scandal.

Voucher opponents are trying to ride the public outrage over the abuses to generate support for their voucher reform, Proposition 212. However, their measure does little to nothing to address those abuses.

Prop. 212 would enumerate things ineligible for reimbursement. However those things are already ineligible. Nothing in the proposition would change the reimbursement structure or process, or add personnel to improve oversight. There is just an exhortation to the Department of Education to do its best.

Instead, voucher opponents are trying to use the justified public outrage at the abuses to establish an income cap on the program and increase regulation of private schools. However, private schools aren’t where the abuses are occurring.

The financial transaction regarding private schools is straightforward and not vulnerable to fraud or abuse. A check is cut to cover tuition. That’s all that happens for the vast majority of students receiving Empowerment Scholarship Accounts and represents the vast majority of money expended under the program.

Despite private schools not being where the abuses are occurring, Prop. 212 would erect a new, intrusive regulatory regimen for them. Each individual school would have to register with the state and pay an annual fee. The state Board of Education would receive new authority to dictate facility standards. Private school teachers and other personnel would become subject to many of the requirements and state disciplinary processes that apply to those working in government schools.

Curiously, while setting up this unwarranted and intrusive regulatory regimen, Prop. 212 wouldn’t add the one reform that is actually warranted: requiring all voucher students to take the state achievement tests. Instead, the proposition says that private schools have to be accredited or conduct the tests. Since the overwhelming majority of private schools in Arizona have an accreditation of some sort, this wouldn’t really be much of a change.

There is one more sleight-of-hand in Prop. 212. There are large surpluses building up for some students. The proposition would sweep these surpluses annually. However, instead of being returned to the state’s general fund, these swept funds would instead be deposited in the classroom site fund. From which they are automatically distributed to government schools on roughly a per student basis. So, in the guise of voucher reform, an unappropriated increase in funding for government schools.

Enter the deception sweepstakes by voucher supporters. Apparently not believing that they can defeat Prop. 212 in a straight-up vote, legislative voucher supporters referred a constitutional amendment intended to render an affirmative vote for the measure moot. The specifics are extraordinarily cynical.

Currently, ESA surpluses can be used for college education expenses. This has always been an unjustified feature of the program. If the state wants to create a program to assist with college expenses, it should do so expressly rather than by allowing parents to pocket monies intended for K-12 education. And if there were such a program to assist with college expenses, there would be no justification to limiting it to students who attended private schools or were homeschooled, excluding the vast majority of students who attend government schools.

The cynical legislative referral would preclude eliminating this feature of the ESA program for military families. Prop. 212 would sweep surpluses annually for all families, including military ones. The legislative referral purports to also invalidate all of any measure that sweeps these surpluses for military families, not just the sweep itself.

I’ve never seen a more blatant violation of the state constitutional requirement that constitutional amendments only contain interrelated provisions. (The actual constitutional language doesn’t say that, but that’s how it has come to be interpreted over the years.)

The smoking gun that the legislative referral flunks the interrelatedness test is this, as mentioned in Judge Joseph Kreamer’s opinion striking it down: The provision voiding all of any measure containing a sweep of ESA surpluses for military families is unnecessary to prevent the sweeps. Since the legislative referral is a constitutional amendment, it would trump a statutory initiative such as Prop. 212. The comprehensive voiding provision is entirely unrelated to the provision preventing the sweeping of funds for the students of military families.

The legislative cynics have appealed. Upholding Kreamer’s opinion should be a slam dunk. But I’ve seen the Arizona Supreme Court make decisions that I thought more based on policy preferences than sound legal analysis. I’m doubtful that the cynical legislative ploy will make it to the ballot, but not fully confident.

So, one side wants to use public outrage over abuses in the program for homeschoolers to muscle through an unrelated income cap and regulatory regimen for private schools. And the other wants to use public support for military families to moot a public vote on unrelated voucher reform provisions.

What would an honest debate about vouchers produce? Wouldn’t that be nice to find out?

Reach Robb at robtrobb@gmail.com.