‘As nasty as ever:’ remote learning renews fight for school choice in Kansas, Missouri
As Kemper Whitlow spoke to lawmakers about his struggles with remote learning, his internet cut out.
The Gardner-Edgerton High School junior was one of several students and parents who came before a Kansas House panel last week begging for a solution, or an end, to the online learning imposed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whitlow complained of faulty internet, disengaged peers, constant screen time and social isolation.
“I’m normally a straight A student but I lack the motivation I had when I’m physically at school,” Whitlow said.
His mother, Jennifer Whitlow, said she was at her “wits end” after months of speaking at school board meetings and protesting to get her kids back in the classroom.
“If I could afford to put my kids in private I’d do it in a heartbeat,” she said.
School choice bills have been debated in state legislatures for years. But the pandemic has placed a new spotlight on the hardships and inequities families face. It has given advocates new momentum to press their case and lawmakers are moving quickly to capitalize on the wider support.
Both the Kansas and Missouri legislatures are considering a series of measures — all written without the controversial term “voucher”— which would nevertheless give Whitlow and thousands of other families the opportunity to use public money to pay for private education.
Kansas lawmakers are seeking to expand eligibility for an existing program providing tax credits for donations to scholarship programs that send low-income students to private schools. A version of the policy was approved by the Senate Thursday after a fiery three-hour debate.
In Missouri, a broader measure is on the table to create such scholarships for any recent public school student. Proponents say it would allow parents to “customize” their children’s education.
The program is part of a sweeping education bill waiting to be heard on the Senate floor. It substantially expands the state’s charter school market and virtual learning in public schools. A House version of the scholarship program that limits student eligibility to low-income and special needs children was cleared by committees last week for consideration by the full House.
Both states also are considering measures that would allow disadvantaged students to directly access dollars the state would otherwise spend on their public education. Parents would be able to withdraw the money for a range of expenses, from private school tuition to textbooks and tutoring.
While the pandemic has lent momentum to the issue, the philosophical argument over what system best supports students is the same. Rep. Valdenia Winn, a Kansas City, Kansas, Democrat, said the debate is “as nasty as ever.”
Supporters say these bills would provide options to families who can’t afford private education but feel the public school system isn’t working for them. Wealthy families, they argue, can already pay for private education or move to pick their school district. This isn’t an option for everyone.
“We send kids to school in this country by and large based on their zip code and if you can afford to live in a nicer home… then you can choose your education,” James Franko, president of the Kansas Police Institute told lawmakers.
Public school advocates warn that the legislation would continue the push toward a “two-tiered” system where the most promising students attend privately run schools, using tens of millions of public dollars, while students with disciplinary or learning problems remain in public systems that have lost funds needed to serve them.
“Over the years it’s been this low erosion, in my mind, of public education,” Winn said.
“The biggest concern is that we move away from the idea of equal education opportunity for all in our public system,” said Mark Tallman, associate executive director of the Kansas Association of School Boards. Those private schools, Tallman said, won’t be held to the same standards as public schools and don’t have to accept every kid.
“It’s easier to be more successful if you can define what you want to do and be more selective in your students. But if that isn’t true for all kids, and we don’t think it would be, that’s where what we believe the long term damage could be.”
Teachers unions, school district officials and administrators warn that the broad measures would siphon money out of the public school system toward alternatives with less oversight. Instead, they argue, that money should be invested in improving the current public school system.
In Missouri, more than 25,000 students attend 66 charter schools, currently limited to Kansas City and St. Louis. The conglomerate bill would allow them to open anywhere with more than 30,000 residents.
“There are real challenges and deficiencies in some of our schools and districts,” said Missouri Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Democrat from Clay County. “But our constitution requires that the legislature maintain the public school system, and all the public schools have to serve all students, regardless of disability or if they’re struggling.”
Pandemic window
Parents and students are frustrated by schools that were thrust into an online format and have struggled to safely reopen. Meanwhile private schools across the country have drawn more students because of their decisions to operate in person.
Through last fall and into the school year, parents have held rallies pushing for school boards to allow high school sports, to permit spectators at those events, and to bring kids back to the classrooms. While some districts have folded under the pressure, others have remained closed, citing health risks to students, teachers and other staff.
“I think there are a lot of places where parents didn’t feel like their needs were being taken care of or their kids’ needs. It was sort of teachers who were putting their sort of opinions first and parents felt locked out of the decision making process,” said Mike McShane, director of national research at Ed Choice, a school choice advocacy group.
McShane said internal polling showed more support than ever for expanded choice. The trend is national, he said, but this window of support may only be open for a small period of time.
“Due to the pandemic we’ve seen a lot of holes in the public school system,” said Missouri Sen. Andrew Koenig, a St. Louis County Republican who sits on the Senate Education Committee, of the numerous school choice measures proposed.
He called the private scholarship proposal “revolutionary.”
“It feels like these bills have more momentum than they’ve had in previous years,” said Arthur, another committee member. “There are more bills filed this year that are getting hearings earlier on.”
That’s partly due to increased activism from parents like Greenwood, MO mother Danielle Wasson, who pulled her high school sophomore daughter out of the Lee’s Summit R-7 School District last fall.
When classes went online last spring, Wasson said she discovered the curriculum covered race and sexuality topics she did not want her daughter taught at school.
“My involvement just snowballed from there,” she said.
The girl is now being home-schooled, and Wasson hopes to use the proposed Missouri scholarship program to enroll her in a Catholic school next school year. She said the option would have been helpful for her now-graduated son, whose disability made him prone to behavioral outbursts.
“There were outside options that I could have utilized [for her son’s schooling], but they’re expensive, but without any kind of tax breaks it just wasn’t feasible,” she said.
Impact to schools
The bills under consideration would sharply increase the pool of eligible students and create new programs.
Though the scholarship bill in Kansas has a $10 million cap on tax credits that can be provided to donors, the program is nowhere near maxing out and eligibility would expand to all students on free and reduced lunch.
Students eligible for a savings account include those who have been required to learn remotely for 120 consecutive school hours or, on a hybrid model, for 180 consecutive hours since January.
Fifty-two of Kansas’s 309 school districts had some students being taught in a remote or hybrid format in December. It’s unclear how many remained in those models in January. The Kansas Revisor’s office estimated that if 10% of public school students participated, the program would redirect more than $217 million away from public schools.
“To put out legislation that is actually penalizing schools for making the best choices for their community, led by elected school boards is unthinkable,” Sen. Pat Pettey, a Kansas City, Kansas, Democrat, said.
In Missouri, the broadest of the proposed tax credit programs would cost the state anywhere from $28 to $100 million a year in lost revenue, according to legislative researchers, allowing up to 14,118 students to attend non-public schools.
That bill also would permit charter schools to open in any town or county with more than 30,000 residents. They are currently allowed only in St. Louis and Kansas City. Legislative researchers estimate 6% of students in qualifying districts would transfer to charter schools at a cost of $100 million to those districts.
Stephanie Noyes, a former private school teacher in Topeka, worried about the funds lost with the departure of those students and whether special needs children like her own would still get an adequate education.
“I understand the benefits private schools can offer certain families just not all families,” Noyes told lawmakers at a hearing. “This bill takes away from those of us who do not and did not have a choice.”
Noyes said the private school she sent her other students to did not have the resources to serve her two special needs children.
Rep. Kristi Williams, an Augusta Republican who chairs the House K-12 Budget committee, said she believed most families are happy with the public schools. Those who opt for these programs, she said, are ones who do not have a “chance to succeed” in the public schools.
“Our kids need opportunities to succeed and we need all hands on deck,” Williams said. “If we have 472,000 public school students and not all of their needs are being met whether it’s remote learning challenges or ongoing challenges with reading and writing therefore we need everybody and every different type of opportunity for our kids.”
“Literally thousands of families are frustrated with their options for education this year.”
This story was originally published February 16, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
