Public Vs Private Vs Charter
I’ve always been a staunch defender of “separation of church & state,” so I wasn’t surprised when I rolled out my Education Policy and there were some strong reactions to my support for private & charter schools. Even my wife gave me a little groan and warned me that a lot of people would have a problem with that part of my stance. As somebody that has long been a vocal critic of the voucher system, myself, I just want to say that I completely get it. For the longest time, I viewed the voucher system as a way to funnel public money into religious organizations and force religion on people. I didn’t know much about charter schools, but I knew that they too were draining resources from public schools. My take on the funding of these business models hasn’t changed so much as the reality of the situation has changed, and my perspective on the matter has broadened. Please, allow me to clarify and explain my position.
On the religion aspect, there’s not actually anything saying that private schools must be a particular religion, or even religious at all. Denial of religious criteria in public schools, however, does prop up a secular viewpoint by omission. That’s not to say that public schools should incorporate religion. If they did that, schools would have to teach every religion to avoid propping up any one religion over another, which would be costly and inefficient. The availability of private schools allows for parents to have the option of including religion in their children’s curriculum without adding to the expenses of public schools. The problem then becomes more of a matter of funding.
As I mentioned in the “Where We Are” part of my Education Policy, school corporations all over the state are reporting funding shortfalls and schools are having to consolidate. One of the primary reasons for this is bad public policy. For the last decade or so, the Indiana General Assembly has added to the requirements of public schools, taken their funding to make the voucher system work, and incorporated a system for reducing property taxes without accounting for the damage it would do to local budgets. In fact, they only just this last year even signed a bill into law that would collect data to analyze the damage they’ve done. For many Hoosier families, though, this effort will be too little; too late. Their children’s schools will have been shut down before any reparation can be made. The schools that survive will likely see more over-crowding, and students are often subjected to excessively long bus routes with these consolidations. Communities are looking for a way to save their schools and establishing a private or charter school enables them to do that.
The line between public, private, and charter is becoming more blurred every year. State policy keeps pushing all three sectors toward shared funding streams, shared facilities, and overlapping governance structures. Today, one would be hard-pressed to find many differences between a secular private school and a for-profit charter school, or a nonprofit charter school and a public school. The one thing that all these business models undoubtedly have in common, though, is that they all serve Indiana children and are the foundation for the next generation of Hoosiers. So, we can argue about who should fund what all day long, but in the end, it is they who suffer the consequences more than anyone.
My Fiscal Policy may be conservative, but it also demands that the government provides for any requirements that it imposes. For parents, this means that K-12, at very least, should not cost you a dime out of pocket. For teachers, this means you should have your own expense accounts for classroom supplies. For schools, this means never having a funding shortage as a result of bad public policy. And for politicians, this means not being able to run on just cutting taxes. The People deserve to know exactly what they’re losing when tax cuts are being promised; not just what they’re losing when taxes are being raised.
I’m not interested in taking anything away from public schools. In fact, I want to repair the damage that has been done to the school system by bad public policy. Does that mean we have to invest a little more in our school system? Probably. But it also means not just throwing money at the problem. It means cutting costs where we can afford to, incentivizing responsible budgeting, and holding people accountable for decisions that place undue burdens on Hoosier families. No more robbing Peter to pay Paul. Let’s pave the way for all Hoosier children to get a quality education, shall we?
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