Missouri’s education savings accounts won’t hurt public schools | Opinion

Missouri is the 34th state to enact an education savings account or ESA system. The MOScholars program allows qualifying students with a U.S. Department of Education Individualized Education Program learning plan, as well as low- to middle-income students, to receive yearly ESA deposits to use toward an approved educational program of their parents’ choosing. (Kansas’ Tax Credit for Low Income Students Scholarship Program has a similar goal.)

Nonetheless, discussion in the press and at the coffee counter is often parochial, focusing on hypothetical concerns rather than the concrete facts before us on the costs and benefits of these programs. We now have years of comparative data. It is possible to evaluate school choice on its actual performance.

The central question concerns outcomes: Does school choice help students? Does it hurt public school achievement? Does it help Missouri meet its goal of forming an educated populace?

It is often said or implied that school choice for parents will inevitably hurt the public school system. But when we look across states, the claim has not materialized. The obvious argument from absence should be first. If ESAs harmed district academic performance, we would expect multiple high-quality studies demonstrating this. Instead, the evidence points to a neutral or slightly positive effect on nearby public schools.

Florida offers one of the clearest cases. Its Family Empowerment Scholarship, launched in 2019, now enrolls more than 220,000 students. Florida public school districts — already above national averages — have continued to improve over the past three years. The hypothesized “cream-skimming” effect simply has not produced measurable harm.

Arizona provides a contrast in baseline performance. Historically a bottom-tier state academically, Arizona expanded school choice earlier and more aggressively than most. Yet its public schools neither collapsed nor improved because of ESAs. Arizona students peaked in 2019 at 45% proficiency in reading and 42% in math. Both figures declined after the COVID-19 pandemic and have not recovered, but the declines do not track with school choice expansion. These outcomes seem driven by longstanding structural issues, not ESAs. Importantly, Arizona’s system at least enables families trapped in low-performing districts to seek alternatives.

Follow Mississippi’s reading success

Mississippi is the counterexample that confirms another truth: ESAs are not a substitute for good district leadership. Mississippi, without an ESA program, jumped from 49th to ninth in fourth-grade reading through strong policy and instructional reforms. That state’s success shows that districts can dramatically improve outcomes even with modest per-pupil spending. If Mississippi can do this, Missouri can too. And if some do not, ESAs give families the freedom to find schools that will.

We can look to the example of West Virginia for a state that has done both at the same time. West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship Program, which for the past five years has allowed students to attend private school, has coincided with public school performance improving year-over-year back to pre-pandemic levels.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joshua Angrist has analyzed school lotteries for charter school slots showing that educational outcomes can be improved by students being admitted to a better school. Since schools can make a lasting difference in student lifetime achievement, and not every school is a fit for every student, ESAs allow for better sorting.

Some argue that the IRS education tax credit unfairly establishes religious education. Nearly 98% of schools that have signed up and met the accreditation qualifications for MOScholars are religious. But one should think about the trajectory rather than the starting point. The only private institutions large and stable enough to meet accreditation requirements on Day 1 are those that have existed for decades — mostly religious schools and a few elite prep academies. Yet clearly, weekly churchgoers are not the only demographic attending religious schools. Many are indifferent to the religious or semi-religious character of a number of these institutions. Only with school choice will schools start to open that are nonreligious in character. We see this in other states. Diffusion takes time.

The growth of hybrid schools illustrates this dynamic. For two decades, most two- to four-day-per-week hybrid programs were religious. But according to the National Hybrid Schools Survey at Kennesaw State University, secular hybrid schools are now the fastest-growing segment, coinciding with ESA expansions nationwide. Given opportunity, founders create schools that reflect the needs and ideals of the broader population, including the nonreligious. Diffusion simply takes time.

There is also concern is that ESAs do not hold schools accountable. But ESA schools must already be accredited by an approved body, and all students using ESA funds must submit yearly norm-referenced test results to the state treasurer’s office. Making these results anonymous, comparable and publicly accessible would strengthen accountability further. A small amount of dedicated staff capacity could sustain such reporting.

Information is important — not so much so that the state can hold schools accountable, but so that parents can. Parents vote with their feet, and are able to identify a bad or deteriorating classroom much faster than a superintendent. School choice works best if families have information to make informed decisions. Missouri already possesses the mechanisms to provide that information.

With the major objections to educational savings accounts met, they will be a bright star in that larger constellation of reforms necessary to make education, no matter the provider whether public or private, excellent.

Sebastian Garren is executive director of Saint John Paul II Preparatory School in Saint Louis.