Understanding the rationale behind Louisiana’s foray into education savings accounts presents a good argument for program expansion, a view at loggerheads with some legislators who actually supported this plan at its inception.
Another battle seems brewing between education freedom advocates in Louisiana, backed at the top by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, and those policy-makers more cautious on the issue, represented by GOP Sen. Pres. Cameron Henry. The throwdown came with Landry boosting in his fiscal year 2027 budget spending on educational savings accounts by double, which would allow for more than only the few hundred families at present able to take advantage of these besides the thousands of low-income families carried over from the state’s previous voucher/scholarship program aimed at allowing children who did attend or who would have attended inferior schools a choice at a better education environment. He had tried something similar last year, but Henry led opposition in thwarting that.
At and after the budget presentation last week, Henry threw cold water on the requested increase of around $44 million. During the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget hearing, he opined that the program had too many other possible family uses attached to it besides moving children away from failing schools to private schools, and accused the Department of Education of bad faith in keeping him informed about these details. Afterwards, in an interview he went further, saying he would reconceptualize the whole program, limiting it to tuition costs needed to move children out of subpar schools.
Interestingly, just over a year-and-a-half ago Henry voted for the program, known as LA GATOR. As did another member of the JLCB who spoke about it, Republican state Rep. Jack McFarland, who made more muted criticism questioning other uses. Henry made clear that he did not object to the reception of funds by the cohort made primary under the law that he recommended should be the sole focus of the law, but with the next cohort that could receive funds after satisfying all of the obligations of the first. The first cohort’s funding aligns with the voucher concept, that a private school could do a better job in that situation and also spur accountability for the public schools subject to this to improve their performance through a market-like mechanism.
That second cohort is eligible on the basis of the ESA concept, which is that families have a choice in the use of dollars. This may include education-enhancing expenditures that the state ordinarily would pump into public schools through the Minimum Foundation Program, subject to a higher income cap (400 percent rather than 250 percent of poverty income). In short, even though Henry voted for the ESA concept, apparently now he has turned against it.
Perhaps part of the problem is that, it would seem, too many legislators haven’t informed themselves of the law or easily-obtained LDOE information (both are necessary because while the law explicates nine eligible uses of funds, a tenth defaults to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education which has added a few more). It’s there that the “devil … in the details,” as McFarland expressed the uses beyond tuition, lay.
Further, legislators have another source of information for their decision-making on this courtesy of the law’s reporting requirements. Part of that includes non-tuition spending to see whether that comprises more than a trivial amount of funds usage, although that includes choices almost totally influenced by the first cohort. Yet the reporting also revealed of those from the second who applied (with few funded) that about three-quarters were attending private schools, meaning while such students from middle-income and lower households are having their educational cost burdens shouldered by their families, they don’t come from failing public schools (nor do the other quarter of applicants that now attend public schools, whose families aren’t paying extra).
Finally, legislators do control the mechanism by which funding options are presented, at present through a contract with a private contractor known as Odyssey. The JLCB must approve that, although the winning bidder must have a system to include all items the law and BESE (out of control of the Legislature) authorize.
And worth noting is that if objections to the additional spending come from believed budgetary constraints, note that these largely don’t exist. While the general fund would be tagged for the extra $44 million, every child that enrolls in a private school using the program means one fewer in the public schools, which eventually works its way into MFP funding and means less state money spent out of the general fund to fund public education. Indeed, depending upon the financing mix and BESE decisions about award levels this could save the state money overall (as well as local education agencies, who get to keep all locally-raised revenues even if they serve few students).
This means if the goal of legislative opponents is to starve the program to prevent its reach past the first cohort, justifying this on the basis of cost won’t work. Nor is it true there is any kind of inevitability of funding increases involved, which Henry implied when he said that “… every year it has to double, right? And lo and behold, this year it’s doubled.” While true that politically it would be difficult to curtail it once higher expenditures occur – in fact, based on estimates bandied at the presentation to fund all of the second cohort could cost $300 million more annually on the front end, keeping in mind an ensuing MFP reduction would follow – there is nothing in the law compelling the state to bump up spending by a certain portion every year.
If Henry and others have philosophical objections to LA GATOR as it stands, they are welcome to pass legislation moving away from the ESA model for cohorts past the first, including tinkering with allowable uses. Otherwise, they are left with the starvation strategy that worked last year, and may work in the future since Democrats, wedded to the one-size-fits-all/Soviet-inspired model of public education, will provide a bloc of votes for that strategy meaning fewer than 20 GOP opponents in the House or fewer than ten in the Senate can join with them to pull that off.
But, let’s be clear about their motives. It’s got nothing to do with finances, but with hostility towards giving middle-class-and-below families the ability to choose education options for their children. If Landry wants to win this budget fight, perhaps he should communicate that publicly.
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