Reply to Betsy DeVos and Vouchers

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]But the Trump transition people, DeVos and some in Congress want to take a portion of the federal education budget and fund MORE vouchers that woudl be available to anyone, regardless of income.

That's definitely now how DC's current program works. The funds are in addition to the amount DC gets for all its public schools, and eligiblity is based on income.

What they are hoping to do would be much more disruptive to DCPS and the charters and the details are important to follow.
[/quote]

On average, federal dollars account for 10% of a school district's total funding. The rest is covered by state and local sources. Of that 10%, almost all of it is funneled to schools for use by specific populations such as special education students, ESL students, and students living in poverty (i.e., Title I). The ESEA was just reauthorized last year. There is zero percent chance that congress will overhaul that bill to redirect funding to the general population. Now what congress COULD do, is decide to take ESL, SPED and Title I funding and mandate that it be used to provide vouchers for those targeted populations.

Congress could also pass a bill authorizing a second pot of money (i.e. totally new funds) that could be distributed through a federal voucher program. However, what is the overall likelihood of our current congress boosting federal education spending by billions and billions of dollars?

What congress and the president CAN'T do is require that states use their own state and local funding on a voucher program. Of course, states that are interested in creating their own state-funded voucher program are free to do s. In fact, many states have done either that or provided a tuition tax credit. You can be assured, however, that DC will not be passing any legislation offering locally-funded vouchers to the average MC family.[/quote]

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