A new form of school choice called education savings accounts is spreading across the nation, and Nevada will soon be the next state to adopt them. Once implemented, the Silver State will be the fifth state to use education savings accounts as a form of school choice.
Education savings accounts let parents take their child’s public school funding and use it for outside purposes, such as private school tuition, online learning, tutoring or community college costs, depending on the law. The Nevada law would allow families to receive a grant equal to 90 percent of the state average spending per pupil to be used toward private school tuition, textbooks, tutoring, school transportation or tuition for college courses, if they are for dual credit. Only students who have gone to public school for at least 100 days are eligible, so current private and homeschool students cannot participate.
Arizona and Florida have similar programs in place, with more than a thousand students participating in each state. But the Florida program is open only to certain disabled students, while the Arizona program allows students with disabilities and students in failing schools to utilize the accounts. In Nevada, more than nine in 10 students will be eligible for the accounts, compared to one in five or less in Arizona and Florida, according to the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.
In 2011, Arizona became the first state to launch an education savings account program. Florida joined in 2014, with Mississippi and Tennessee signing their programs into law earlier this year. Both the Mississippi and Tennessee programs are open only to students with special needs.
Montana was close to adopting an education savings account program for special needs students, but it was vetoed by Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat.
Other states offer individual tax credits for tuition expenses and other fees. For example, Louisiana allows any taxpayer with private school education expenses to deduct up to $5,000 per child.
In Nevada, local districts would lose money for each student who opts into the school choice program. But on a per-pupil basis districts would actually have more to spend, since they retain a portion of a lost student’s funding.
Students with disabilities or students living in low-income households would be able to get 100 percent of their per pupil spending placed in the account.
Some critics, such as the Baptist Joint Committee, have called the program “vouchers,” but that’s not the case. Education savings accounts allow for more flexibility than vouchers, so students can remain in public schools part-time while taking part-time classes at a university.
In many cases, families might expend all of their account toward private school tuition and still not have the total cost covered. Most accounts will have only roughly $5,100 disbursed to them in the program’s first year. For example, a family still couldn’t cover the $14,450 annual tuition at the Las Vegas Day School with its entire account, although it would help some families lower the cost into affordable range. But the education savings account could cover the entire cost of $3,750 annual tuition at the Reno Christian Academy, with room leftover to cover the cost of textbook fees, tutoring or transportation.
The bill passed both chambers of the Nevada Legislature with only Republican support. Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, is expected to sign the bill.
