Public school vouchers, educational savings accounts, and tax credits are often promoted as a means to increase student choice and competition among schools, but they can inadvertently discriminate against students with special needs.  This discrimination arises from several factors, including funding disparities, unequal access to resources, and a lack of accountability in private schools.

While I could address each of these factors, and likely more, I will just address one, funding disparities.  Vouchers, and any other like mechanism, typically provide a set amount of money for each student to provide school choice.  When compared to the amount the State of Idaho funds students with special needs, one can see that vouchers discriminate against special needs students who attend public K-12 schools.  Now, I cannot speak for each and every school district in the state of Idaho, however, I can offer mine as an example.

Things are about to get a bit boring, as I will be discussing finances, but I really need to bring awareness to this issue.  In our district, we currently serve 601 students with special needs.  According to our state funding formula, we receive $2,118,200 to provide for the needs of those students.  If all of those students were to use vouchers under the rules of House Bill 93, the school of their choice would receive $4,507,500.  I think one can see that is approximately $2,400,000 more than what we receive to support these students.  How is this fair?  How is this equitable?  How does this improve competition?  This is one example; I implore our legislature to seek more information about this disparity.  If our legislature chooses to implement any sort of voucher mechanism, I would ask, rather expect, them to provide public K-12 schools with the same amount of funding to support the needs of our most vulnerable student population.

In conclusion, while public school vouchers are intended to increase student choice, they will inadvertently discriminate against students with special needs.  If this indeed is what our legislature wants, then I would implore the parents of our special needs students to demand the same funding for our students.  If our legislature will not provide equity, I would dare say there are other options.