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Today, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos joined Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.), to announce new federal legislation that would establish a federal tax-credit expanding school choice. The proposal would give dollar-for-dollar tax credits to individuals and corporations who donate to state designated scholarship granting organizations (SGOs). While its particulars bear scrutiny, the “Education Freedom Scholarship” (EFS) proposal’s overall design is a solid attempt to walk a tightrope of backing state efforts at school choice while protecting against federal meddling now and in the future. Unfortunately, a number of critics on the right are too quick to react on their fears, and too slow in remembering what is holding back school choice.
As I wrote back in 2017, backing state developed tax-credit scholarships is the best, and probably only, way the federal government could support state efforts without overreaching. It would not be a federal program, but a tax credit that supports programs where states are explicitly responsible for policy particulars. As I laid out in 2017:
No doubt, the bill would need to be explicitly structured to ensure the states’ primary role, and durably prevent federal overreach; fortunately defending states’ role is a paramount feature of the bill’s design. I sympathize with some fellow conservatives’ concerns over federal entanglement, but their early criticisms aren’t arguments about the bill. Instead they assume any federal involvement must end in tyranny.
Certainly it’s appropriate to take care when considering expanding federal involvement in education, and recent history is replete with examples of well-intentioned efforts turning into federal regulatory creep. However, this tricky path is a tightrope worth walking, because the central challenge for most state school choice programs, and tax-credit scholarships programs in particular, is their low funding levels (many are below $3000). Most attempt to deliver school choice with inadequate funding, in large part because states only have access to state funding streams rather than the local and federal streams that public schools also enjoy. Done right, this modest federal tax-credit could safely layer another source of funds — private contributions — to make scholarships a more reasonable size, and to help the mostly low-income families they serve. Again, as I wrote previously:
School choice programs have a mixed bag of evidence backing them, and I have argued much of that could be due to far lower funding than public school students receive. Despite this low funding, compelling impartial studies, including a study on Florida, released this month, show that tax-credit scholarships can have substantial benefits for recipients in terms of college going and degree attainment. If these state-directed programs can generate benefits with states doing all the financial lifting, how much more progress could be had with carefully structured federal backing and more reasonable scholarship amounts?
We should not be naïve about the dangers federal support may pose for these state programs or for the independence of private schools. Neither should we be naïve about the level of investment these programs need to bear fruit. Balancing the two is indeed like walking a tightrope, but this proposal could be a good first step.
We should not be naïve about the dangers federal support may pose for these state programs or for the independence of private schools. Neither should we be naïve about the level of investment these programs need to bear fruit. Balancing the two is indeed like walking a tightrope, but this proposal could be a good first step.
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