National PTA has joined many other organizations in a letter to policymakers to express our opposition to any effort to insert a new private school voucher program, including a proposal announced by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to provide “microgrants” to students, in the next COVID-19 relief package. DeVos’s “microgrant” proposal is simply a private school voucher program by another name: it would provide direct federal grants for educational expenses, including private or for-profit online learning courses and services provided by private schools.
We recognize the hardship many students and families are currently facing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has led to an unprecedented interruption to our school systems, which has forced students and educators out of the classroom and left children and families without the same access to educational programs and services. It is during this challenging time that the federal government should focus on providing more resources to our public schools and public school educators, who are best equipped to serve all students, rather than siphoning limited resources to private schools and for-profit online learning programs.
Public schools provide education to 90% of our country’s students. Private school voucher programs undermine our nation’s public schools by diverting desperately needed resources away from the public school system to fund the education of a few, select students in alternative settings. Voucher programs have proven ineffective in improving students’ academic achievement, lack accountability, and fail to provide students with the rights and protections they would receive in public schools. Funneling federal dollars to private and unaccountable education providers in a time of hardship for schools, educators, students, and families across the county is especially bad policy.
This proposal would allow for broad, unaccountable use of taxpayer funds. Private school voucher programs are rife with accountability problems. They generally do not require participating private schools to comply with the same teacher standards, curriculum, reporting, and testing requirements as public schools. Without the inclusion of accountability measures and oversight provisions, there is a great risk for waste, fraud, and abuse. This program, for example, could divert relief funds to unqualified, unaccountable online vendors, which by design, cannot provide the same well-rounded, comprehensive education as in a brick-and-mortar school. The effectiveness of these programs has been shown repeatedly to be academically inferior. Congress should not send federal dollars to such an unaccountable program.
This program will not help the students most in need. According to reports, this voucher program would direct funding to students with disabilities and low-income students. But voucher programs have been shown time and again to fail to meet the needs of students with disabilities. Private schools accepting vouchers would likely have no obligation to accept nor appropriately serve students with disabilities. And, voucher schools often cannot provide the same quality and quantity of services available to students in public schools, including those mandated under each student's IEP. Given the additional challenges online classes present for some students, these vouchers could not possibly address the needs of these students, or fund the accommodations and services required by the student’s IEP. Moreover, school closures required to address the current public health crisis have revealed stark equity gaps among students in this country. A better use of funds is increasing the capacity of public schools to serve all students.
Microgrants may be appropriate for higher education, but not for K-12 education Microgrants may be appropriate for financial assistance for students attending colleges and universities, but not for K-12 education. Higher education is voluntary and costly, and microgrants in that context are an evidence-based practice to help students remain in college in the face of unexpected financial challenges. Our nation’s public elementary and secondary schools, on the other hand, are compulsory and free for all students. Thus, it is unnecessary to provide this type of financial assistance for K-12 students; and, it is inappropriate to use the term as a ruse for creating a new private school voucher program.
In conclusion, this unprecedented pandemic should not be exploited to promote unaccountable, inequitable, and ineffective private school vouchers. We urge you to reject any effort to force private school vouchers into the next COVID-19 relief package.
