By Dr. Charles Barone
Many voucher and ESA proponents cite polling showing that 60% or more of parents of K-12 students support using public funds to pay for private school tuition. Some cite such statistics and declare the debate over. But a deeper look at what parents actually want reveals a starkly different story. The “school choice” parents are willing to support comes with a robust set of conditions centered on fairness, accessibility, and accountability, conditions that existing voucher and ESA programs fail to meet.
In a poll we released earlier this year, we asked parents what they would want from a government-funded private school choice system. And the results are eye-opening.
The majority of parents (71%) we surveyed support allowing parents to use state public education funding allocated for their child’s education to send their child to any school they choose whether that is a public school, private school, religious school, or homeschool.
However, the data show that parental support for private school choice is not a blank check. It is a highly qualified endorsement, contingent on private schools operating in a manner that reflects public values and in a way that virtually none of them actually do.
The most resounding condition, supported by 67% of parents in our poll, is that if a private school accepts public funds, it should provide scholarships to cover any tuition costs beyond what the voucher provides. The idea that all K-12 students should receive a free public education is hardly radical.
But that’s just not the case in the vast majority of states that have a voucher or ESA program. The national average for private K-12 tuition is more than $13,000, with high schools averaging over $15,000. In many states, particularly in the Northeast, the average can easily exceed $25,000.
Most voucher/ESA programs, in contrast, offer somewhere between $6,000 and $9,000 per student. For example, Arizona’s universal ESA program provides about $7,500, on average. Utah’s new program is around $8,000. North Carolina’s varies on a sliding scale from about $3,000 to $7,000.
The resulting gap is typically several thousand dollars per year. A family receiving a $7,500 voucher for a private school with average tuition would still need to pay nearly $6,000 out of pocket. For more expensive private high schools, that gap could easily become $10,000 or more. With the exceptions of Maine and Vermont, which cover private school tuition for students that do not have a local public high school option, we are not aware of a single state in which parents are covered for the full cost of tuition. None of the other 48 states requires private schools to close those gaps and we see no evidence that private schools are providing scholarships in any systematic way to cover them.
For middle income families, let alone those living at or below the poverty line, these gaps are not a small, manageable co-pay. They are a formidable financial barrier. It’s no wonder that in August, Future Ed concluded that “In most states, the primary beneficiaries [of voucher and ESA programs] have been families whose children were already enrolled in private schools.” Researchers at Brookings have reached similar conclusions.
Vouchers aren’t free. They don’t cover the full cost of private school tuition, forcing families to pay the difference. In the end, parents pay more, but our communities get less.
Parents are steadfast in their opposition to private schools being able to limit or deny access to students based on a variety of criteria. Sixty-four percent of parents say that private schools should be open to students regardless of their gender, race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation. This belief is reinforced when parents are asked about specific exclusionary practices. When any school—public or private—receives government funding, overwhelming majorities of parents believe it should be prohibited from refusing to admit a child based on a disability (77%), discriminating against LGBTQ students (70%), or using race (71%) or gender (68%) as a factor in admissions.
This principle of non-discrimination is not a fringe opinion. It is a core expectation for how publicly funded institutions should operate. While ESA proponents emphasize parental choice, more often than not it is schools that choose, not parents.
Private schools in most if not all voucher/ESA programs are allowed to discriminate in admitting students based on a vast variety of criteria. Most private schools, particularly religious institutions that make up the bulk of voucher-accepting schools, reserve the right to do exactly what parents oppose. They can and do, for example, deny admission to LGBTQ students, or lack the resources and will to adequately serve students with disabilities.
More than half (53%) of parents would prefer the private school option not be religious at all. But under law, religious schools are required to be in the mix. In Carson v. Makin (2022), the Supreme Court ruled that Maine’s tuition assistance program, which prohibited public funds from going to religious schools, violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. The Court determined that if a state chooses to provide public funds for private tuition, it cannot exclude schools solely because they are religious. And yet, religious schools remain the most affordable private option by a landslide.
In short, the system that parents are willing to fund is one of radical inclusivity; the system currently being built is often one of sanctioned exclusion.
Parents are not, however, against all forms of selection. They are open to admissions policies that prioritize fairness and academic standards over demographic exclusion; parents are comfortable with schools considering academic performance (66%) and disciplinary records (64%) in admissions. Conversely, a remarkable 74% support reserving spots for students from low-income families, and a majority (54%) back reserving spots to achieve a more diverse student body.
This reveals a sophisticated and coherent vision. Parents envision a system where at least some schools can be selective based on merit and behavior, but not on a student’s identity or background. They want to create a diverse and accessible educational marketplace, where public funds are used to foster opportunity for all – especially for those farthest from it – not to create taxpayer-funded enclaves that can pick and choose students based on criteria the public itself rejects.
In our poll, 86% of parents supported requiring all schools to provide access to transparent data on student achievement, discipline, and enrollment for families and policymakers. But, more often than not, states don’t require private schools to collect let alone publish this data. The Fordham Institute reports that some states require the collection and dissemination of outcome data (test scores) but these are the exception rather than the rule and even those states that do require collection and dissemination of data don’t do it consistently. Nor are private schools receiving public funds required to participate in NAEP.
A Future Ed study published last year concluded that “every state with a universal private school choice program except Arizona and Oklahoma required academic assessments of participants in 2023-24. But some states allow multiple assessments, some don’t make the information public, and some don’t require results to be comparable to public school performance…Moreover, of the eight states we studied only Ohio and Florida require schools in universal choice programs to share test scores with parents. The other states lack a framework to help parents decide what is working for their students—there’s no clear benchmark against which to measure student success.”
As Nate Malkus of AEI, a voucher proponent, concludes: “I don’t think the testing requirements are as strict as some people would like them but the idea that there’s zero accountability for these isn’t true either. It’s somewhere in the messy middle.” We’re of the opinion that a “messy middle” is no place for public funds or for parents who want reliable information on the best school for their children.
The message from parents is clear: they see public funds as a tool for equity and fairness, not as an unaccountable taxpayer-funded discount for families who could already afford private tuition. Yet, in states across the country, we see voucher programs with such broad eligibility, minimal protections for discrimination, and relatively scarce financial aid that they primarily subsidize the choices that the well-off has already made, doing little to expand access for the most disadvantaged and often leaving those who can afford it to cover a significant tuition gap.
When it comes to providing parents with the choices they want, while providing meaningful, measurable results they need, expanding public school choice where these things already exist and simply need to be brought to scale would appear to be the logical solution. For example, open enrollment systems allow parents to break the binds of school zoning and attend public schools outside of their neighborhoods. Meanwhile, magnet schools, charter schools, and innovation zones allow for innovative options and specialty programs while still maintaining fundamental principles of access and accountability.
Policymakers championing these programs would do well to listen. The school choice parents are asking for is not the one they are getting, and until that changes, the school choice debate is far from over.
###
ABOUT THE NATIONAL PARENTS UNION
With more than 1,800 affiliated parent organizations in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, the National Parents Union is the united, independent voice of modern American families. We channel the power of parents into powerful policies that improve the lives of children, families and communities across the United States. https://nationalparentsunion.org/