Indiana and Michigan Celebrating Their School-Choice Success

The number of students taking advantage of Indiana voucher program is set to grow this year, while the charter school enrollments in Michigan have gone up 400%.

Supporters of the Indiana voucher program can now claim it a success after the first year saw 4,000 students take advantage of the money to enroll in private schools. That number enrolling this year has already exceeded that of last year by 800 students, with the deadline to sign up for the program still months in the future.

The law that created the program, which passed in 2011, also made it one of the most liberal in the nation, with some of the broadest income windows and without the restriction that a student’s district public school be failing in order to participate. In all, Indiana spent nearly $15.5 million dollars last year to fund the $4,150 vouchers, which were spent primarily in private parochial schools. The attrition rate for voucher students was also lower than expected, with only 327 total leaving the program during the course of the year. If a voucher student leaves a private school, the money is refunded back to the state on a pro-rated basis.

Bishop Luers High School which admitted 58 voucher students last year, only lost 4 or 5 students. According to the school’s principal Mary Keefer, while some decided that the school environment wasn’t right for them, some were asked to leave since they couldn’t meet the academic standards set by the school administrators.

Julie Nieveen, of Warsaw, used a voucher this year for her 13-year-old daughter, Ellie. She said all her other children had gone to public elementary and then Lakeland Christian Academy for middle and high school. She said that for rest of Ellie’s K-12 career, the family could see savings of $25,000 under the voucher program.

Although the voucher program is being challenged in court, on the grounds that it violates the separation between church and state by allowing public money to be spent on religious instruction, School Choice Indiana, the group that shepherded the voucher legislation through the Indiana legislature, counts its first year as an unqualified success. Lindsey Brown, the group’s president, said that the next priority is to expand the program to kindergartners and completely remove all income limits, allowing all Indiana families to participate if they choose.

The Indiana program isn’t the only school choice initiative celebrating a milestone this year. According to a report by the Center for School Change, over the last ten years, the number of Minnesota students enrolling in charter schools has increased four-fold. During the same period, enrollment in public schools dropped by nearly 5%.

Director Joe Nathan says the center has no position on which schools are better. He says he believes charter schools are growing because they offer distinctive programs parents want. Nathan also says he thinks some families are attracted to them because charters tend to be smaller, often cater to non-English speakers and have helped students of color improve performance.

Comments

wintertime

June 6, 2012 at 6:42 pm

Regarding church and state issues:

Godless government owned and run schools are not religiously neutral either! Just to cooperate in the classroom the children must think and reason godlessly. How could it be otherwise?

Fact: NO school is religious neutral, because a religiously, culturally, and politically neutral education is impossible. It is axiomatic.

Therefore….The most religiously neutral way for the government to fund education is to let the parents choose the **private** school for their children . The government should get out of the business of teaching children to think and reason godlessly. Government owned and run schools are a First Amendment and freedom of conscience abomination.

Reply
Doug

June 7, 2012 at 6:22 pm

The nation was founded on the separation of church and state. The place for religious education is Sunday school or private school, not paid for with tax dollars.

Reply
Read the founders and framers of this country. Nearly all of them indicated that and education grounded in religion and virtues are foundational to a free country with liberty ..

June 8, 2012 at 7:03 pm

Listen to America’s founders and framers
• “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools of learning shall forever be encouraged.” USC (Northwest) Ordinance of 1787
• George Washington: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensible supports. Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion” Farewell Address 1796
• Governor Morris: “Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore, education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man”.
• Thomas Jefferson: “Can the liberties of a nation be secured when we remove their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that their liberties are of God?”
• Benjamin Rush: “The only foundation of the republic is to be laid in religion; without this there can be no virtue and without virtue there can be no liberty and liberty is the object in life for a republican government; the universal education of youth in the principals of Christianity by the principles of the Bible” Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical
• John Adams: “It is religion and morality alone which can establish upon which freedom can surely stand. Our constitution is made only for a moral and religious people.” 1798 Address
• Charles Carroll: “Without morals, a republic cannot subsist for any length of time”. Letter to James McHenry 1800.
• Samuel Adams: “Religion and good morals are the only foundation for public happiness”. Letter to John Trumball 1778
• Patrick Henry: “The great pillars of government and social life are virtue, morality and religion; this is the armor alone that renders us invincible.” 1799
• Alexis de Tocqueville: “The Americans combine the notion that Christianity and liberty so intimately, it is impossible to conceive one without the other.” From the start, politics and religion have agreed and not ceased to do so.” “Democracy in America”
• Benjamin Franklin: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom; As nations become corrupt and vicious they have more need for masters” Letter to Massers 1787
• Noah Webster: “the moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all
Our civil liberties: The Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. To preserve the government we must also preserve morals.
• Daniel Webster: “To preserve government, we must also preserve morals; morality rests on religion 1800

Reply