Good ideas demand action. As mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead once said, “Ideas won’t keep: something must be done about them.” This is certainly true of school choice. Opposition from teachers’ unions and other naysayers remains shrill – even formidable – but that has not deterred reform-minded lawmakers from pushing for greater educational options for families. In fact, when it comes to the “idea” of school choice, a whole lot of something is being done about it.
Consider a number of recent developments across the country. In Louisiana, state legislators recently passed a tax deduction worth 50 percent of the amount parents spend on private school tuition, up to $5,000 per child. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal acted quickly to sign the bill into law.
According to Governor Jindal’s office, families with children attending private school are not the only ones who will benefit from the new law: the legislation also provides a tax deduction for “qualified educational expenses for parents of home-schooled students and for uniforms and other expenses for public school students.” In short, the program applies to all K-12 students in Louisiana. This feature, notes the Friedman Foundation’s Greg Forster, makes Louisiana’s law distinctive as it is, “universal…establishing the important principle that school choice is good for all, not just for some.”
Georgia may be next in line to offer an education tax incentive. Several weeks ago, Georgia legislators passed a $50 million philanthropy education tax credit for individuals and corporations making donations to scholarship organizations. If Governor Sonny Perdue signs the bill into law, Georgia corporations will receive a 75 percent tax credit for contributions to scholarship organizations. Individual taxpayers will also get a tax credit of up to $1,000 when they donate to scholarship organizations, while married couples will receive a credit worth up to $2,500.
The Georgia legislation is “modeled after the nation’s largest private school choice program, Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program,” writes Andrew Campanella in the current issue of School Reform News. There’s little administrative padding for scholarship organizations: these nonprofits, notes Campanella, would need to spend “no less than 90 percent of their contributions on direct scholarships” – an indisputably good thing for the thousands of students awaiting help.
Georgia lawmakers also considered a voucher bill during their recent legislative session. This measure would have provided tuition vouchers to students trapped in chronically bad schools. But Georgians will have to wait on vouchers: while the bill cleared the Senate, it never made it to the House floor for a vote.
Floridians, on the other hand, will get a chance to speak directly to the issue of vouchers as they head to the polls in November. Last Friday, the state Taxation and Budget Reform Commission approved language placing a constitutional voucher amendment directly on Florida ballots. The voucher amendment is paired with language requiring 65 percent of county school districts’ tax appropriations to be spent in the classroom. In order for the amendment to pass, 60 percent of Florida voters must vote to approve it.
Florida legislators are also considering several other choice proposals, according to Education Week. Lawmakers have been mulling over the creation of a voucher program for students in foster care; they’re also contemplating expanding the state’s education tax credit, currently capped at $88 million.
Will North Carolina join the ranks of states offering education tax incentives, ushering in a broader range of educational options for families? Let’s hope so. The North Carolina General Assembly convenes on May 13th, less than two weeks from now. Legislators in our state know they must grapple with reforming our K-12 education system – a system that churns out dropouts and traps far too many students in failing public schools.
Sooner or later, something must be done about it.