Voucher programs, funded directly by states for private school tuition, are yet another form of school choice. Vouchers are now unconstitutional in Florida which was the first state to implement them. They were replaced by corporate tax credit scholarships. In spite of the state supreme court decision, vouchers for students with disabilities have not been challenged in court.
North Carolina’s vouchers are under appeal. New York’s legislature is currently battling over whether to fund forms of vouchers and tax credits. The legal basis for vouchers varies due to differences in wording in state constitutions. Florida’s constitution Bush vs Holmes clearly specified that funds must go to public schools. A similar argument is being made in North Carolina.
The Center for Evaluation in Education Policy at Indiana University reports on private school vouchers in the four states that offer them for general education students. These are new, rapidly growing programs that now may be slowing. How they differ is instructive.
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Suppose you are a really good teacher and can prove it. You notice that a neighboring district has a pay for performance plan where high quality teachers with less experience earn more money than average teachers with more experience. Would you change districts? In today‘s Gainesville Sun, a local economist, Dave Denslow, summarized a study by Barbara Biasi, a Stanford graduate student, who compared school districts in Wisconsin that used a ‘pay for performance plan‘ with districts that did not. The result?
