吃瓜大本营

As the Senate worked through the night last Friday on massive legislation that would overhaul the U.S. tax code, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas added an that would effectively transform a college savings account into a school voucher for K-12 education. If the amendment survives, it would advance a type of policy that hurts the public school system and, as new evidence illustrates, hurts students with disabilities.

The provision would expand 529 savings accounts, which for saving for future college costs, to cover tuition and other expenses at elementary and secondary schools, including private and religious schools. Given that in America are sectarian, incentivizing families to enroll their children in private schools means incentivizing them to enroll 鈥� or continue to enroll 鈥攖heir children in private religious schools. Additionally, the type of tax break proposed in this bill would increasingly exacerbate educational disparities by reducing available funding and resources for public schools. It would leave those remaining in public schools to be educated in an underfunded system of last resort. Public schools, which serve 90 percent of the country鈥檚 students, are obligated to serve all students equally. But the same cannot be said for private schools, which can, for instance, reject students because they have disabilities. already present plenty of evidence of the ways that vouchers do not advance educational equity.

And last week, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) presented more in a that studied 27 voucher programs across the country. The watchdog found that vouchers fail to provide necessary or accurate information to parents of students with disabilities about the rights students forfeit when enrolling in a private voucher school. A third of the programs do not provide any information about these changes in rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). And the vast majority 鈥� 83 percent 鈥� of students who enrolled in a voucher program for students with disabilities did so through a program that provided either no information or inaccurate information about changes in rights.

Making matters worse, neither IDEA nor Department of Education regulations require that parents be informed about changes in their child鈥檚 rights. When they do learn that their children don鈥檛 have the same protections, parents can be blindsided. According to the GAO, 鈥渃onfusion arises because parents are under the impression that since school choice programs are operated and funded by the state, and are often designed for students with disabilities, their children will have similar protections to those ensured to public school children under IDEA.鈥�

This means that parents may unknowingly send their children to schools that aren鈥檛 required to have certified special education teachers, that do not provide some or all special education and related services, that do not educate students with disabilities with nondisabled peers to the maximum extent possible, and that do not adhere to disciplinary guidelines. With no requirement to uphold these rights, or even to provide accurate information about the forfeiture of these rights, you end up with scenarios like this:

鈥淥ne family told us they were surprised to learn that teachers providing special education services to their child were not trained to provide those services, and another parent described changing schools because they learned aspects of their child鈥檚 disability could not be accommodated only after enrolling their child in a school.鈥�

The weaknesses in these voucher programs put students of color with disabilities especially at risk. As detailed in a today to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, these students are disproportionately subjected to punitive discipline practices, placed in restrictive learning environments, and misidentified for certain categories of special education. They are more vulnerable to a lack of clarity about rights and loss of IDEA protections.

It isn鈥檛 news that private school voucher programs overall have major accountability problems, and not only for students with disabilities. The GAO itself has the District of Columbia鈥檚 voucher program and found similar weaknesses in administration, oversight, and provision of information.

Despite all this evidence, the Senate amendment was adopted last week 鈥� by a 51-50 vote after Vice President Mike Pence broke a tie 鈥� and the House bill included a mostly in its own tax legislation, which has been voucher proponent DeVos. Members from both houses of Congress are now attempting to between the bills in a conference committee. This means that Congress is poised to use the tax code to advance the religious education of certain students at the expense of public schools and the students who attend them 鈥� even while evidence continues to mount regarding the harmful effects of vouchers, particularly for students with disabilities.

If Congress really wants to help every individual child, it should focus on ways to improve public schools 鈥� particularly those that serve underprivileged students, families, and communities鈥� rather than chip away at their ability to serve all students. The government should not incentivize families to choose religious education through tax policy.