Of all the grifts perpetrated by and on Gov. Bill Lee, I think the Education Savings Account plan is my favorite. It had been on hold, but the Davidson County Chancery Court lifted the injunction against it, and now parents who meet the financial criteria in Nashville and Memphis can take public school funds and use them for private schools. Says Lee: “Low income students deserve the same opportunity as every other kid in this state, and we will need a bold plan that will help level the playing field.”
The new website for the Education Savings Account program won’t be up until Tuesday, July 19. But parts of the old website are still up, so we can see what the governor has in store. Under the section titled “What is the ESA program?” we learn that “an ESA-eligible student will receive funds to use toward tuition, fees, books and other educational expenses at a participating private school.” This will be about $7,000.
Farther down that same page, though, we learn that the aforementioned student won’t actually receive the funds: “ESA funds will be distributed directly to participating schools, reimbursing schools for student expenses.” The site also says a number of times that this money goes toward educational expenses. Left mostly unsaid is that it will not cover it all. Only once do the materials say, “Participating private schools may offer additional financial aid to eligible students in the form of scholarships or payment plans.”
It’s still going to cost you to send your kid to private school. Same as it does now. Will it even cost you any less to send your kid to private school? As of right now, that’s not clear. As anyone who’s ever applied for financial aid to go to college can attest, sometimes you can get a big chunk of change from the government, and it just goes to covering what the school was already willing to cover; it doesn’t necessarily go to covering what it costs your family to send you.
To make this overly simplistic, let’s say you apply to two schools. Both cost $100, both provide financial aid, and both will take ESA funds. Both schools decide your family can afford to pay $10. One school offers you $90 worth of scholarships, uses your ESA to cover $7 of what you can afford, and leaves your family to come up with $3. The other school offers you $83 worth of scholarships, uses your ESA to cover $7 of what the school would be out, and leaves you to come up with $10.
One of those scenarios makes the school actually affordable to some amount of poor people. The other scenario does not. It’s not entirely clear what approaches to using the $7,000 private schools would have to take. Maybe they’ll discuss that on the new website.
As much fun as not actually receiving the money — and not actually being sure of how much that money might actually help in making private school affordable — is, it is not the pinnacle of evil of this plan. That comes later in the FAQ. “Participation in the program waives the student’s right to receive specially-designed instruction and related services according to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Participation in the program also makes the student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) invalid and the student will not be entitled to a free appropriate public education (FAPE) from the public school district.”
Families of kids with disabilities who need specialized education can’t participate in this program and still keep their right to receive specially designed instruction — because any kids who attend private schools give up that right. Just a reminder that a lot of “gifted” kids rely on IEPs to make sure they get their FAPE.
So if your disabled kid is stuck in a bad public school that only poorly meets their needs, you can use this program to put your kid in a school that isn’t free for them to attend and doesn’t have to meet their needs at all! Whew, I can feel the freedom washing over us.
Look at how narrow the eye of this needle is: Your child needs to be accepted into a private school that participates in the program, and you need to fit the financial eligibility stipulations for the program but also be well-off enough to cover any family contribution and/or be able to get loans to cover what the $7,000 from the state doesn’t. And if your kid has any educational needs, you either can’t participate, or you need to absolve the state and the private school of the legal responsibility the state has to provide your kid with an education that meets those needs.
Pay more for less!
Honestly, I think this might be a boon for some number of families. Is that number 5,000 — the amount the earlier version of the program was capped at — between here and Memphis? I don’t know, but I kind of doubt it.
Here’s the thing, though. The state legally has to provide kids with a free education that meets standards for people with disabilities. Public schools don’t always do this. We’ve all heard horror stories. But this is the state’s obligation, and when it falls short, there are legal remedies.
What the state is doing here, though, is straight-up saying that if you will give up your right to a free education that meets your educational needs, the state will give $7,000 not to you, but to the school you opt to go to instead.
This is a fucked-up precedent. If you have a right to something, you have a right to something. The state should not be able to pay you to give up that right. You have the right to vote. Should Bill Lee be able to offer you $7,000 to give up that right? Would it be cool for the police to sit outside Bonnaroo with waivers stating that, if you accept this $7,000, you waive the right to having your death investigated should you die while at the festival?
I just don’t think the government should be able to bribe you into giving up your rights.
And with this grift, they’re not even bribing you. You don’t ever see that money. You’re giving up your rights, and the money goes directly to the private school.
That’s the part I’m in awe of. To convince people that ending up with fewer rights and more debt than they have right now for a financial windfall they never actually directly see — that’s some supervillain shit.
