July 25, 2003

What will happen if vouchers are accepted as the way to fund education?

At first, vouchers may seem appealing. It may seem that competition would drive quality. That private schools provide a better education at a lower price. But would that be the case under vouchers?

Consider Los Angeles schools. There are 1.9 million students in the County. There are 0.7 million in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Only 0.2 million students in the County are in private schools. About half that many in the City are in private schools.

What happens when you give those 0.7 million students vouchers? There are two possibilities. Most move to private schools, or they don't move.

If most move to private schools, the private school population swells by a factor of up to 5. If the LAUSD students stay within LA City, the private schools in the City see enrollment swell by a factor of up to 10. Absorbing so many students would be impossible. Costs soar as the schools have to buy new land, build buildings, and buy books and other school supplies. There is a huge teacher shortage which can only be satisfied if the private schools hire all of the teachers laid off by LAUSD. Standards for teachers get no better -- probably they get worse. There is no regulation of teacher quality. Quality of education at the private schools drops dramatically even as costs go up. At the same time, the bloated bureaucracy at LAUSD survives even as enrollment and funding drop, so education there manages to get even worse than it is now.

Alternately, most of the students might stay where they are. The private schools are able to handle the tens of thousands who use the vouchers. Those select few get a better education. Because so few use the vouchers, mostly the voucher program has little effect on the quality of education, but the voucher bureaucracy takes up tax dollars that had been going to students.

By a factor of 5 to 1, there are more private schools in areas with high incomes, so it is reasonably clear who the select few would be.

By a factor of 3 to 1, there are more private schools in areas with low numbers of Hispanics, so it is reasonably clear who the select few would be.

By a factor of 3 to 2, there are more private schools in areas with low numbers of blacks, so it is reasonably clear who the select few would be.

Only 9% of Los Angeles private schools offer special education, so it is reasonably clear who the select few would be.

At the very least it is clear that a voucher program will fail unless it provides comprehensive planning for transitioning huge numbers of students to new schools. Such a massive change in how we educate our population is not going to happen magically by just throwing voucher money at the problem. Educating all students is simply a very different problem than than education the 10% of Los Angeles students who now choose to go to private schools. Private schools are completely unprepared to deal with the different problem.

Richard M. Mathews

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