Let’s appreciate homeschool teachers

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week, a time to celebrate the 3.6 million school teachers in this country, including some 421,000 working in private schools.

But there are many other teachers who also deserve our gratitude, including one who lives under my own roof. The very picture of unselfishness, for years Susie Dutcher has gone about her work each day with a quiet strength and dignity, often toiling into the wee hours over essays and worksheets and lesson plans for our homeschooled children.

“She looks well to the ways of her household,” as the proverb says, “and does not eat the bread of idleness.”

“I respect your public service,” she once testified in the nation’s capital before a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. “And I hope you respect my public service, which consists of providing the public with one healthy family, comprised of well-adjusted, productive individuals.

“Because of the time and money and energy I invest in their lives,” she said, “I believe my children will grow up to do great things.”

Economists tell us the difficult work of childrearing provides a benefit to society (I believe the term is “positive fiscal externality”). “Everyone benefits from having a next generation in place to sustain the society and keep its institutions going,” writes Jennifer Roback Morse. “In modern developed countries, the family saves the state money by taking care of its own dependent young, rather than foisting that responsibility onto the taxpayers.”

Our political leaders should appreciate these parents, including those mothers who educate their own children. These teachers build human capital without making demands on budget-conscious appropriators already besieged with requests from competing interests.

After all, policymakers don’t have to provide my children’s teacher a salary, health and retirement benefits, and so on. Indeed, her family’s tax dollars help pay the salaries of public school teachers. She pays for school breakfasts and lunches, too—both for our own children and for the children of our fellow citizens. She buys her own school supplies (without the tax deduction, alas, that other teachers enjoy) and also buys school supplies for others.

When it’s all said and done, her hard work of educating our children will have saved our political leaders well over half a million dollars. That’s money they can use to build roads and bridges, incarcerate criminals, or pay schoolteachers.

Imagine how much money politicians would have to come up with—not only current expenditures but also construction costs—if a few million homeschooled students showed up at public schools nationwide tomorrow morning wanting to enroll.

My children’s teacher is not a professional. She’s an amateur, a word that traces to the Latin amare (“to love”).

“Rather than an exchange,” economist John D. Mueller explains, “love is best described in economic theory as a gift or voluntary ‘transfer payment’—that is, as a voluntary distribution out of one’s resources not made in compensation for useful services rendered.”

As she told the senators that day, “I used to be a schoolteacher, and certainly the salary and benefits I could earn teaching school would improve our material well-being. But some checks can’t be cashed at the bank: My son, when he was 3 years old, said to me one day, ‘I’m proud of you ‘cause you do the right things. Like take a shower, and fix my breakfast … Those kind of things.’

“I know it’s all worth it when we’re on the floor playing with blocks and I notice out of the corner of my eye that he has stopped playing and is staring at me like a smitten young man. ‘I love the way you talk,’ he said to me. ‘And I love the way you smell.’

“‘How do I smell?’ I asked.

“‘Like a mommy.’ ”

That little boy’s all grown up now, doing a residency in orthopedic surgery—thanks to his teacher, who very much deserves our appreciation.

[An earlier version of this article (now behind a paywall, alas) appeared in the Tulsa World.]

Driving students away reaps benefits for public schools

"Data released by the Oklahoma State School Boards Association (OSSBA) indicates that Oklahoma public schools directly or indirectly reap as much as $534 million annually for students they don’t serve," Ray Carter reports.

To increase funding in Oklahoma’s public schools, give families a universal ESA

"School choice actually puts more money into the budgets of government schools, and saves money for state budgets as well," Greg Forster reminds us.

Oklahoma school-choice programs save money

A new report from EdChoice (“The Fiscal Effects of Private K-12 Education Choice Programs in the United States”) finds that Oklahoma's tax-credit scholarship program saved about $12.5 million to $32.6 million since its inception through FY-2018, which is about $2,000 to $5,200 in savings per scholarship student. 

Oklahoma's private-school voucher program saved about $12.6 million to $22 million since its inception through FY-2018, which is about $4,700 to $8,300 in savings per scholarship student.

Bixby, Deer Creek continue to siphon money from public schools

Broken Arrow, Owasso, Edmond, and several other school districts are guilty too, according to the latest enrollment-growth data from the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE). For shame!

New Year’s (and legislative session) resolutions

[Guest post by Jonathan Small]

When it comes to resolutions, one should pursue those that are simple and achievable. That’s true whether you’re talking about personal resolutions or (as I am today) resolutions for public policy goals for Oklahoma. In that spirit, I offer the following.

Lawmakers should raise the cap on Oklahoma’s Equal Opportunity Scholarship Program. Research has shown, repeatedly, that this program saves state funds and increases overall spending on education. It also increases academic opportunities for needy children and puts Oklahoma on the path to a better future by ensuring more students become prepared for work or college.

The Legislature should also advance much-needed union reforms (excluding those serving hazard-duty public-safety employees). First, unions should be required to obtain recertification regularly. The strikes of 2018 demonstrated they have the power of elected officials and the ability to shut down our schools. That kind of power needs regular accountability. Today’s teachers and other education employees should not be bound by a certification vote taken by their grandparents' generation. When a union provides value, recertification is no threat, and when a union doesn’t there’s no reason to limits its members’ options.

Unions should also be required to proactively receive a worker’s permission before union dues can be obtained from teachers and education employees. Also, state and local governments shouldn’t be involved in collecting dues for unions.

To benefit teachers, lawmakers should provide state-funded liability insurance coverage. Many teachers don’t agree with their union’s political stances, but still feel compelled to join because membership includes liability insurance coverage. Teachers who maintain classroom discipline should not have to fear frivolous lawsuits. The state should give them more financial peace of mind.

Scholarship tax credits generate great outcomes

The editorial board of the state's largest newspaper praises an important school-choice program.

Henry program saves taxpayers money

Oklahomans support our state's private-school voucher program because it’s changing the lives of children, Jonathan Small writes. But a new study shows an added benefit: It has saved Oklahoma taxpayers more than $3 million.

A money-saving ESA proposal

"Many legislators and the governor have expressed concern over a gap between tax revenues and government spending," Byron Schlomach and Vance H. Fried write. "One way to cut this gap is to create a low payout ESA program. Low payout ESAs are a way to reduce government spending by letting parents volunteer to accept a reduced level of support from the state in order to provide what they consider a better education for their children."

Most government-funded programs allow participants to choose a provider

"Public education in America is one of the only major government-funded programs that does not allow participants to choose a provider," the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee (JEC) notes in a new report.

Social Security beneficiaries can choose how they spend their benefits. Medicare and Medicaid recipients generally choose their health care providers. Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients can choose where they shop. Federal Housing Choice Voucher program recipients can choose where they live, and in fact, the federal government touts the accommodating aspect of housing choice: “Since housing assistance is provided on behalf of the family or individual, participants are able to find their own housing, including single-family homes, townhouses and apartments.” Thus, adding choice in education is consistent with the tradition of other large government-funded programs.

OCU economists: School choice tax credit saves the state money

"The state budget saves $1.24 for every dollar of tax credit issued to the Oklahoma Equal Opportunity Education Scholarship Act, according to an Oklahoma City University study released Friday," The Journal Record reported October 6.

The study is available here. The state's largest newspaper has an excellent editorial here. OCPA president Jonathan Small discusses it here.

Scholarship tax credit providing value to students, Oklahoma state finances

The state's largest newspaper discusses a recent fiscal-impact study undertaken by two OCU economists.

A win-win compromise on education

Some Oklahomans want to spend more money on education. Others prefer more school choice. But as Oklahoma City University law professor Andrew Spiropoulos points out, "it turns out that if you invest in choice programs, you can free up a lot of cash for public schools."

Read the whole thing here.

Does school choice expand the welfare state?

It's unlikely that state Superintendent Joy Hofmeister was sincere in her concern about ESAs expanding government. But in any case, as Greg Forster explains,

a well-designed school choice program won’t cost money, but merely redirect existing levels of spending. Most choice programs actually save money for state budgets, even as they improve educational outcomes. Parents making choices for their own children are more efficient and more effective than the bloated bureaucracy that controls spending decisions under the government school monopoly. A state in fiscal trouble has more reason, not less, to enact universal school choice pronto.

Read the whole thing here.

Profiting from tax-credit scholarships?

No, tax-credit scholarship policies don't enrich donors and they don't drain the public coffers, Jason Bedrick and Marty Lueken write.

School choice saves taxpayers money

Martin F. Lueken explains.

Economist, OSU professor propose universal ESA for Oklahoma

Their study is here, and an op-ed in the Stillwater News Press is here.

Tax-credit scholarship program saves Florida millions of dollars each year

There were two excellent letters to the editor in The Oklahoman on Sunday defending Oklahoma's tax-credit scholarship program. One was from Charlie Daniels of Bartlesville, and the other was from Patrick Gibbons of St. Petersburg, Florida. Gibbons, a 2006 graduate of the University of Oklahoma, is the public affairs manager of Step Up For Students, a scholarship-granting organization in Florida. He writes:

Regarding “Private school scholarship tax credit gets scrutiny” (News, Dec. 4): Katherine Bishop's criticism that Oklahoma can't afford the $2.5 million Equal Opportunity Education Scholarship doesn't square with findings from the nation's largest scholarship program. Florida offers a more generous scholarship with a 100 percent tax credit for donors and a scholarship worth up to $5,886. Step Up For Students (my employer) raised more than $550 million this year alone to fund nearly 96,000 scholarships for low-income students. Even with the higher scholarships and tax credit percentage, eight reports in the past 15 years (including reports from the state legislature's Office of Program Policy Analysis & Government Accountability and Florida's Revenue Estimating Conference) have all concluded that Florida's program saves the state millions of dollars each year. The reason is simple: The revenue lost through tax credits is made up by eliminating the expenditure to fund the student's (now empty) seat at a more expensive public school. 

If Florida's experience is any indication, Oklahoma could actually afford an expanded program with larger scholarships and more generous tax credits for donors. Public schools and taxpayers would benefit from the savings, while low-income parents throughout the state would benefit from more educational opportunities for their children.

Tax-credit scholarships save money

A new study is here, and a terrific Wall Street Journal editorial is here.

Key observation from the study: "School choice critics often argue that school choice siphons resources from public schools. But their logic paints school funding as a ratcheting wrench that works only one way ..."

Hofmeister's 'claims about money issues have appeared ill-informed'

Noting "a trend line that gives Oklahomans reason for growing concern," The Oklahoman recently discussed a few instances in which state Supt. Joy Hofmeister's "claims about money issues have appeared ill-informed." Read the entire piece here, but I want to highlight what The Oklahoman identified as "a bogus fiscal impact statement":

This year, Hofmeister's agency produced a fiscal impact statement regarding Education Savings Account legislation. That document said the department would need to buy $700,000 in new computer equipment to process ESAs. Yet the calculations involved were no different than what the agency already does with existing equipment on a daily basis. 

It turned out the $700,000 was to replace the Department of Education's entire state aid system, a change in no way tied to potential passage of ESA legislation. The department had requested that equipment purchase as far back as November 2015—months before the Legislature was even in session. 

In a subsequent radio interview, state Finance Secretary Preston Doerflinger bluntly noted that the superintendent had “provided a fiscal impact that was completely inaccurate.”

For an accurate fiscal impact statement—showing that the state of Oklahoma will save $267,000 for every $1 million it spends on an ESA program—click here. This fiscal note should come as no surprise, considering that the empirical evidence shows quite clearly that "school choice saves taxpayer money and also has a positive fiscal effect on school budgets—especially when it uses a voucher or ESA structure," as education researcher Greg Forster points out. "When a student leaves, the public school loses all the expenses associated with that student but not all the revenue, because of the convoluted way we fund public schools. Twenty-eight empirical studies have examined school choice's fiscal impact on taxpayers and public schools; of these, 25 have found that school choice programs save money, and three have found that the programs they study are revenue neutral. No empirical study has found a negative fiscal impact."