The Georgia Constitution states it clearly:
“The provision of an adequate public education for the citizens shall be a primary obligation of the State of Georgia.”
Note the term “public education.” Taxpayers are not obligated to provide a private education but a public education. If you want a private education, you may certainly go get one. But the taxpayers of Georgia are under no obligation to pay for it.
Not yet, anyway. But bills in the state House and Senate would change that by creating what they euphemistically call “Education Savings Accounts.” Described honestly — which is something their backers try to avoid — these so-called ESAs aren’t savings accounts at all, they are taxpayer-funded vouchers to finance private-school education.
Under HB 243 and SB 92, parents would be encouraged to withdraw their children from public schools with a taxpayer-provided cash subsidy, equal to the amount that the state would have spent on their education had they remained in the public system. Depending on the school district, the voucher would be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,000 a year.
Under the proposals, the money would be put into an account and used by parents for any educational expense they deem worthy — private tuition, private tutoring, books, home schooling, field trips. If the family doesn’t need to spend it on those things, it can set aside taxpayers’ money ostensibly collected to finance k-12 education and instead use it to finance college. It could even be spent on things such as private music lessons.
Think about that: We have schools in this state that haven’t been able to keep their doors open for 180 days a year; we have schools in which band and music programs have had to be slashed to the bone or even eliminated. And we’re going to divert state taxpayer money to finance private piano and violin lessons for private-school students whose parents would be paying for such things anyway?
The theory captured in the state constitution is that education of our children is our collective obligation, and that it ought to be discharged collectively. The theory of the voucher bills is quite different. It envisions government as little more than a glorified collection agency on behalf of affluent parents who deem public systems insufficient.
This isn’t reform. This is abandonment.
Even more remarkably, the money would flow with no accountability or standards. We’ve heard a lot of talk about the need to toughen education standards and to improve the quality of Georgia teachers, including requiring them to take subject-matter tests and make them accountable for their performance.
Yet these voucher bills abandon altogether the concepts of standards and accountability. Under HB 243, the complete extent of the state curriculum requirement is that private schools teach “at least the subjects of English and language arts, mathematics, social studies, and science.” It is absolutely silent on the content of those courses, on teacher qualifications, on textbook quality, on instructional days and any other issue.
Call me old-fashioned, but if the state is going to use its awesome powers to collect taxes from me, the state incurs an obligation to at least try to ensure that the money it has taken is spent as wisely as possible. It is not the “parents’ money”, no matter how many times conservative politicians try to pretend otherwise.
