Many citizens interested in educational change get excited about tax credit and voucher plans. They cite potential benefits that seem encouraging, such as smaller government school class sizes and additional per-pupil revenue, and increased revenue toward, and attendance in, private schools.

These claims are worth examining. To do so, let's imagine that a tax credit or voucher plan passes in your state. Let's accept the likelihood that children will exit government schools in greater numbers to attend private schools.

Let's also assume, as most tax credit and voucher proponents claim, that government schools will still receive a portion of each exiting child's tuition without being forced to educate that child. In essence, that the burdens of large class sizes and insufficient funds will be eased somewhat. Let's likewise envision private school budgets flourishing due to additional revenues from new students.

Under such a scenario, everyone wins, right? We could be on our way to an educational utopia; a golden era in America.

Again, it sounds wonderful, but are there any potential, unintended consequences? What happens, for instance, when an increasing portion of the revenue for our favorite private school comes from a government tax credit or voucher?

A central argument employed by tax credit and voucher opponents is that private schools and teachers are not required to be accredited by a government agency. They equate this with a lack of accountability. This is laughable in that the entire government school system is unaccountable in every meaningful way.

What is not laughable, however, is how easy it would be for government school advocates to force private schools to incrementally swallow additional regulation. All that is required is a small statutory change: Redefine what an eligible school is.  By redefining who is eligible, you redefine who gets money. Simply force private schools to accept additional regulation in order to keep receiving tax credit or voucher funding.
Note: Some educational proponents claim that tax credit plans are safer than voucher plans because a credit is assessed before taxes are collected, making it less of a public tax than a voucher. This is merely semantics in reality, as the name tax credit, implies that it is… a tax. The same small statutory redefinition will affect a tax credit program the same as it would a tax voucher program.

After all, we are not talking about "private dollars" here. We are talking about tax dollars — even advocates call them tax credits and tax vouchers. Because they are not considered "private dollars," they can more easily be placed under "public scrutiny" and "public accountability" — battle cries for additional government regulation.

Could these dangers be dismissed as far-out fear-mongering or pure conjecture? Consider federal subsidy programs such as the G.I. Bill, passed under the rationale of providing veterans with sufficient funding for a college education — and nothing more.

As colleges increasingly based their budgets on the additional revenues of the G.I. Bill and other similar federal subsidies, they became more susceptible to additional, incremental regulation. Today, there are only a handful of colleges in America that can be considered private. Perhaps the best example of a large, private college, is Hillsdale College, which proudly boasts that it accepts no federal funds, including the G.I. Bill.

Where did all the independent, private colleges go? The answer: They were subsumed by the very welfare programs they initially celebrated.

If this were not sufficient grounds to be concerned, consider the not-so-stellar track records of charter schools. As we repeatedly witness across the country, these pseudo-governmental efforts are rapidly assimilated by the same bureaucratic regulation behemoth that has destroyed "out of the closet" government schools.
Note: Why, then, have government school unions opposed charter schools, tuition tax credits, and vouchers if they so easily undermine and destroy them down the road? The answer lies in their short-sightedness. They are already glutting themselves, hand-over-fist, with government tax dollars. Why should they share the spoils even temporarily, or rock that boat with any change at all?

Some counter that private schools will consistently resist additional government regulation. Not likely. As we have seen time and again under other government programs and regulation, larger, more established private schools will have an enormous market incentive to actually increase regulation. The more costly and time-consuming the hoops, the less likely their smaller competitors can afford it, and — Walla! — the less competition they have and the more tax credit and voucher dollars for their own budgets.

To summarize, the paramount question we should ask ourselves about tax credit and voucher programs is not whether more children will move to private schools, but whether private schools will be able to remain private? Before we invite the Trojan Horse with open arms, we should comprehend what it will do once it is inside.

The bottom line is that we have wasted countless dollars and energies promoting programs that play right into the hands of government largesse. If we are ever going to free our children, we must be more bold and daring in our approaches and attitudes.

We must first admit that government schools, be they "out-of-the-closet" or pseudo-governmental entities, are an abject failure. Not-so-clever tinkering with tax dollars will not create success where there can be none, and will actually harm the private efforts we should be bolstering.  We must develop the foresight to recognize that the government school experiment will continue to collapse — an unavoidable consequence, as systems of force and coercion always collapse under their own weight.

We can speed that collapse by pulling our own children out of government schools, and by supporting others who do the same. We can send our children to private schools, or, better yet, educate them ourselves whenever possible.

Yes, there are some teachers with exceptional skills and insights, who truly want to see their students competent, literate, and successful.  Unlike parents, however, they cannot remain with the same children throughout their entire schooling.  Our society will improve as parents recognize their own innate skills and insights to educate their own children, as they cherish the free mind of their children, and as they protect their children from sterile environments they themselves avoid whenever possible (think of traffic school, college, mandatory employment workshops, career days, etc).

As government schooling continues to decline, more people will naturally gravitate toward private and home schooling. Support for, and economic ability to pay for, government schooling will shrink, and the exodus cycle will continue. Unless, that is, we try to forestall the thankful end of government schools by pursuing counterproductive tax credit and tax voucher programs.

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