Donald Trump announced a $20 billion federal school choice proposal last week and the major nationwide teachers’ unions, who have both endorsed Hillary Clinton, are predictably mad about it.
Trump described his plan as a block grant to states, where each state would develop its own formula for funds distributed to students in poverty to use at the public or private school of their choice. States would have the option of participating, though Trump said he would campaign for participation “in all 50 states.” He called on states to provide funds on top of the federal funds, providing up to $12,000 for each student.
Some of the union criticisms of the plan are misleading or wrong.
For example, take what Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said about Trump’s plan in an email to union activists. She called it, “Donald Trump’s plan to take away $20 billion meant for public school children.”
But Trump’s plan never says where the $20 billion would come from, only that it would be “done by reprioritizing existing federal dollars.” That could mean the $20 billion would come from existing education funds, or existing defense spending funds or any other $20 billion in the $4 trillion the federal government will spend in 2017.
Although Trump’s plan doesn’t specifically say so, since the plan focuses on children in poverty it’s likely the money will go to existing public school children. Of course, they could then use that money to attend a private or public school of their choice, but it’s still going to current public school children.
Weingarten then says Trump’s “cut” could strip funding from up to 56,000 public schools, end federal aid to high-poverty schools and eliminate as many as 300,000 jobs for teachers. Again, this is a possible consequence of Trump’s plan, but since he doesn’t say where he would reprioritize funds from no one knows for sure.
When Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, responded to Trump’s plan, she said, “Decades of research have found that vouchers fail to improve student achievement in any impactful way, do not help the students most in need and ignore the real opportunity gaps that exist in public schools.”
But analysis published in May by University of Arkansas researchers found that the research actually does show that vouchers improve student achievement. “Voucher programs globally tend to positively impact test scores,” the analysis said. The positive impact increases the longer a student stays in the choice program. Not every program works great, but the analysis found “overall positive and statistically significant achievement effects of school vouchers that vary by subject.”
Trump’s plan isn’t perfect. Conservatives and libertarians who support school choice can legitimately argue that a proposal like Trump’s shouldn’t be under federal jurisdiction. Trump should also make clear where the $20 billion for the proposal would come from.
But for teachers’ unions to claim the proposal would certainly take money away from public schools is misleading, and it’s wrong to say school choice doesn’t generally help students.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
