Explosive voucher growth makes help for public schools more difficult

For immediate release:
Oct. 31, 2014

INDIANAPOLIS – State Rep. Gregory W. Porter (D-Indianapolis), ranking Democrat on the Indiana House Ways & Means Committee, today issued the following statement on the potential for helping Indiana’s public schools in the next biennial state budget:

“As we continue to try and make sense of the recent House Republican claims that they intend to help Indiana’s public schools recover from the funding problems that these same House Republicans created, perhaps it is instructive for us to look at the most recent numbers of students who will be participating in the voucher program that was championed by, once again, these House Republicans.

“According to figures received from the Indiana Department of Education, 29,146 children are presently qualified to receive vouchers for the 2014-15 school year. That is an increase of nearly 10,000 students over the 2013-14 figure of 19,809.

“The cost of the voucher program for 2014-15? It is estimated by DOE at just over $57.9 million for the first half of the year. Again, this is an increase over the $39.6 million budgeted for the first half of the 2013-14 school year. Just remember that these numbers cover only half the school year. The final dollar amounts will be much larger.

“Why is this important? Because state support for the voucher program comes from the same pool of funding that supports our public schools. Every dollar that goes toward vouchers is taken away from public schools that do not have the ability to pick and choose who they get to educate.

“If we continue to see this kind of explosive growth in vouchers over the next few years, how is that going to help make our public schools whole again? If more funding is provided for education, how much will have to be siphoned off to pay for vouchers?

“And while the Republicans who control our state government might say that they want to do more for schools, there is ample evidence to suggest that such support ranks second to their unswerving devotion to maintaining a state budget surplus above a magic figure of $2 billion.

“Rather than substantial increases in state support to make things right for our public schools, it is easy to gather that solutions proposed by the Republicans will begin with tinkering with the tuition support formula used to fund those schools. Already we have heard talk that this formula needs to be thoroughly examined in the next legislative session.

“However, it does not take a great stretch of anyone’s imagination to see that the Republican ‘fix’ would aim at taking tuition support from less-advantaged urban schools and rural schools with declining enrollment and shifting those dollars to suburban schools. All one needs to do is look at their past history to see that this would be their preferred means to answering the thorny mess that they created.

“But this does nothing for our public schools who need our help the most. In fact, it only would serve to accelerate the disaster.

“The first step in correcting this mess is realizing that all of our schools deserve support, not just a select few. That is where the debate must begin, not by extending policies and philosophies that got us into this trouble in the first place.”