Indiana’s voucher program grew by 20% in 2022-23, according to a new report from the Indiana Department of Education. The program, which uses state funds to pay private school tuition, served 53,262 students.
Its cost grew even more: by 29% to $311.8 million, the 2023 Choice Scholarship Program Report says. That’s significant, but both participation and cost will explode this fall as the state expands to a nearly universal voucher program, open to almost all students. State officials project that the program will double in size and will cost Hoosier taxpayers $1.1 billion in the next two years.
The 2022-23 voucher report shows a continuation of trends that developed once the program was established. A growing majority of voucher students are white. Increasing numbers are from affluent families. They are unlikely to have ever attended a public school.
A record 343 private schools participated, and nearly all are religious schools. Under Indiana law, schools that receive vouchers can reject students for their religion, disability, test scores, sexual orientation, gender identity or for not being a “good fit.” Indianapolis Roncalli High School, which fired two counselors for their same-sex marriages, received $4.15 million in vouchers.
Former Gov. Mitch Daniels sold the voucher idea in 2011 with two claims that turned out to be false. First, he said it would save the state money, because it would cost less to provide a voucher than to send a student to public school. As it turned out, most of the students would be attending private schools with or without a voucher, and their tuition is an added cost for the state.
Second, Daniels suggested vouchers would help low-income families escape “failing” public schools. But as the program grew under his successors, there’s no clear link between voucher participation and public school effectiveness. Voucher families are no more likely than other Hoosiers to be low-income.
In 2022-23, only 28.1% of voucher households had an income below $50,000. (Indiana’s median household income is $62,000). Voucher households were more likely to make over $100,000 than under $50,000.
Voucher students are also disproportionately white, given that voucher schools tend to be located in cities and increasingly racially diverse suburbs. Nearly 62% of voucher students in 2022-23 were white. Only 9.5% were black, compared to statewide Black public school enrollment of 13.1%. Some 36.1% of voucher recipients had never attended an Indiana public school.
All that might be excusable if vouchers worked. They don’t. As Michigan State professor Josh Cowen explains, studies have consistently shown that students fall behind academically when they use a voucher to move from a public to a private school.
Despite the growth of vouchers, the overwhelming majority of Indiana K-12 students – 87.5% — still attend traditional public schools. In 2022-23, 4.6% of students attended charter schools, 4.7% attended private schools with vouchers, and 3.2% attended private schools without vouchers.
Look for the voucher share to go up this fall as the program grows to include families that make up to four times the limit to qualify for reduced-price school meals: $220,000 for a four-person household.
Legislators like to say Indiana “funds students, not systems.” We don’t. The students and their families never touch the money; it goes straight to the schools. We’re funding an unaccountable system of private education that teaches religion and can discriminate. That’s just wrong.
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