by David Safier
Tuition tax credits save the state money? So its proponents argue. They subtract the average tax credit scholarship from the cost of educating a student at public school and say the result is the saving per student.
They conveniently leave out the fact that the scholarships go to many students who would attend private school regardless. A pesky little detail.
The Republic, which has been going after the tuition tax credit story with gusto lately, concluded, as it says in the head, Tuition tax credits drain state money. I won't go through the math, which is on the sidebar, but the Republic makes the most generous possible assumptions, and the tuition tax credits come out as pretty much a financial wash. It could easily have used less generous numbers and concluded that the credits cost the state money. In fact, it looks like that's the case.
The Republic showed its numbers to a few people for analysis. One of them was G.I.'s Matthew Ladner. [Note to Ladner: Now there's an idea. Before you put out one of your "studies," have your "conclusions" perused by scholars and/or critics to see if you've overlooked something. Peer review, I think it's called.)
Matthew Ladner, vice president of research at the Goldwater Institute, a free-market think tank, called the analysis "a good-faith estimate." He noted that important data not collected by the state makes it impossible to know with certainty the financial impact of the credits on the state.
"In my view, if these programs are costing the state money, that's not the end of the world," said Ladner, who also is on the board of the Arizona School Choice Trust, a school-tuition organization. "The real scandal in education is that 44 percent of Arizona's fourth-graders score below basic in reading."
When in doubt, divert. "Don't look at the tax credits. Look at the reading scores!" [Another note to Ladner. You're implying that students at private schools score higher on reading than equivalent students at traditional public and charter schools — not saying, just implying. Proof, please? Because I haven't seen any.]
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Matthew.
I would respond to your comment in detail, but I still have a question out there which you have not responded to. So, to lead back into that question, let me quote from your comment above: “what I told him was that he was trying to know something which currently cannot be known with any certainty.” There’s a bit of irony hearing that from you. After all, you seem to think I’m being picky to question your ability to know “with any certainty” the conclusions you drew from the three studies I’ve called into question.
Which brings me back to my question. I’m beginning to wonder if you would rather not respond, since I’ve asked it a few times and not yet received an answer.
I simply want to know if your three studies comparing traditional public and private school students in the areas of civics knowledge, tolerance and positive feelings about their schools were drawn from three separate surveys, or if there were fewer than 3 surveys. It may be too much to hope for, but I would also very much like to see the surveys themselves — Gallup, among other companies, publish the raw data from their surveys on their websites — so I can get a better idea of the quality of the data.
If you stand by your studies and are concerned with your credibility, I can’t see any reason why you wouldn’t reveal this relevant information.
David-
You are really going to have to stop being so reckless, or else I will, with the deepest regret, have little alternative but to interview for a new cyber-stalker.
I was not implying that children in private schools read better than those in public schools, although they do and I will provide you with proof in a moment. Instead, I was implying that if public schools faced meaningful competition for students that they would do better in teaching the basic skills hoped for with our $9+ billion. There is plenty of evidence to support that as well.
On the private vs. public question- you can read the study linked to in this column. It comes from the IES in the U.S. Department of Education “What Works” Clearinghouse, and is a random assignment control group study comparing DC voucher children to DC voucher lottery losers. The IES has subjected 11 different education interventions to this level of scrutiny, only 3 of them show statistically significant gains, and that this one has the biggest impact of any studied thus far:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjA4NjNhNDMyMWE0MGZiMjY1MjBjYjU3NTRlODNjNjY
As to Mr. Hansen’s estimate, essentially what I told him was that he was trying to know something which currently cannot be known with any certainty. No one knows what the price elasticity of demand for private schools, nor how many students would be attending private schools in the absence of the program, or for that matter, even how many students actually are attending private schools.
He made a good-faith attempt, but this is really far more complicated than his method captures, as I pointed out here:
http://jaypgreene.com/2009/10/15/bean-counting-arizona-tax-credits/
Finally, at the core, I believe that this is an entirely a phony issue for those who share your views as you wouldn’t care in the least if we had metaphysical proof that the credit did save money. As I have written here before, the $9.2 billion elephant will shriek at the $55m mouse regardless.
If you really are concerned with saving the state money, feel free to join me in calling for a personal use tax credit explicitly designed to save the state money, as I suggest in the blog post above. No STOs, no admin fee, big savings to the state- nothing much of any of the things you’ve been complaining about.
The Goldwater Institute basically wrote the original law for these vouchers so it is truly rich to see Ladner complain that the government is collecting enough data on the program. I have to wonder – did they purposely write the law so that oversight was impossible or are the ideological blinders so strong they really didn’t think it was necessary. Either way, it doesn’t say much for their ability to develop effective solutions.
I take it Matthew Ladner was using “good faith estimate” as a derogatory term, given all the “bad faith estimates” he and his organization attach their names to.