EDITORIAL: N.C. private school vouchers must be national model, not object of ridicule

CBC Editorial: Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019; Editorial #8466
The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company.

The Asheville Citizen-Times recently reported that private school in Asheville, where most of the students’ have their tuition paid in large part by North Carolina taxpayers, teaches students the earth is a mere 10,000 years old.

Last year, of the 145 students at Temple Baptist School in West Asheville, 95 (64 percent) were there through the state’s private school voucher programs. But, unlike traditional public schools or public charter schools, there is almost no accountability for how the public funds are being spent.

North Carolinians deserve a private school voucher program that is a national model – not the one it has now that is ridiculed for its lack of standards for academics, student achievement, financial accountability and public transparency.

So far this school year, North Carolina taxpayers are spending:

• $38 million to give 9,651 students private schools vouchers.
• $14.8 million to give 1,850 students disability grants to attend private schools.
• $2.6 million to give 291 students Education Savings Account debit cards that can be used for private school tuition or other broadly defined education expenses.

But no one really knows the details of how that money is being spent. In fact, state law specifically prohibits disclosure of any information directly related to how the students or their parents use the public funds.

“Parents deserve to have the ability to choose the learning environment that’s best for their kids,” said state Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, one of the most vocal backers of vouchers.

So, who’s supposed to look after the tens of millions of public dollars sent to private schools?

• Is the money going to students’ education in the classroom?
• Is personal spending for internet access, video screens and other materials being used for education purposes?
• Are teachers properly qualified and compensated?
• Are students learning anything?
• Is that learning being tracked appropriately?
• Are the schools free of discriminatory practices based on voucher-students or their parents’ race, faith, disability, gender or sexual orientation so ALL children can have the opportunity to go to schools they choose?

This is not burdensome meddling. It is the basic responsibility our government expects of nearly anyone who accepts state assistance.

But when it comes to private schools and vouchers, the most fervent backers of the program say accountability doesn’t matter.

"Parents are the ultimate accountability check regarding the overall efficacy of the educational experience provided to their children,” said state Sen. Ben Clark, a Democrat from Hoke County. “These programs mitigate financial barriers to parents with limited fiscal flexibility and empowers them to seek and choose alternatives for their kids to match them with the optimal educational environment for achieving success," he said in the news release distributed by Sen. Berger’s office.

Clark is wrong. A parent’s satisfaction is fine – but as a steward of the taxpayers’ purse, Clark knows he, his fellow legislators and North Carolina’s taxpayers must know more.

North Carolina could easily have a model private school voucher program, that wouldn’t pose any onerous burden on the students, parents or schools receiving funds.

• Private school voucher awards should always consider financial need as the primary criterion.
• Schools should be actively registered as non-profit corporations.
• On an annual basis, the schools should share with the state AND with parents, the results of each student's standardized test scores. These standardized assessments should be nationally-normed.
• Be fully accredited by a high-quality organization such as the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools or AdvancedEd which require the schools to:
  • Meet a stringent set of high quality standards for curriculum, business practice and governance structure.
  • Provide aduited financial data for review and inspection.
  • Survey faculty, staff, students and parents to assess overall school quality and effectiveness.
  • Creat a deeply deliberative and introspective self-study to identify and track the school's goals.
• Assure that admission requirements are free of discriminatory practices based on students' or their parents’ race, faith, gender or sexual orientation.

North Carolina’s current private school voucher programs are invitations to waste, fraud and abuse. It doesn’t have to be that way and it is past time to fix it.