EduGram

EduGram Thoughts of the Week:

Pop quiz: What do Ellen DeGeneres, the 2007 Opt Out of Iraq War Act, and NCGA legislation HB823 all have in common?

Ellen DeGeneres is a comedian who hosted a popular daytime television talk show. She's a vegan who supports Meatless Mondays and gave $25,000 to oppose the Ag-Gag whistleblower legislation (designed to silence whistleblowers who report cruelty to farm animals) in Tennessee. When asked what her first executive order as president of the United States would be, Ellen DeGeneres advocated a mix of voluntary taxation and tax choice, saying "You should get to choose where your money goes instead of giving it and just letting them decide; I think you should decide."

The 2007 Opt Out of Iraq Act was legislation filed by Rep. Nydia Velázquez that would've allowed taxpayers to deduct their tax portion of funds necessary for the Iraq War and direct them to social programs instead. So, if you didn't want your tax dollars going towards our military, then you could single-handedly decide your money” shall be used to provide funding for Head Start, to reduce the national debt, and to provide college funding for children of Iraq war veterans.” An interesting anti-collective government stance from someone who as of December 2022 had voted with Joe Biden's stated position on issues 100% of the time.

Of course, most readers of the EduGram will know that HB823 is the latest school-voucher bill moving through the North Carolina General Assembly. This bill take away the last vestiges of the promises made when Opportunity Scholarships came to fruition – those assurances that the program was only for less fortunate families to have access to private schools just like rich families do. However, this latest school-voucher bill isn't for those families struggling to make ends meet. You see the families at the lower end of the economic scales are already fully funded with existing dollars. This new funding of about $463 million only serves to allow the wealthiest of North Carolinians to access these funds, including students who have been in private schools their entire educational career but just found out the NCGA is handing out free money.

Still no clue of how these three items fit together? Okay, here’s the common thread: All three things subscribe to the economic theory known as public choice theory or taxpayer sovereignty. This economic/tax theory states individual taxpayers should be able to direct where their tax dollars are spent. It sounds reasonable on its face. Heck, a friend of mine on Twitter this week even offered that, "All residents of NC pay state taxes which fund our public education system. If a parent decides they want to send their kid elsewhere, why should they not get their fair share of the pot they paid into?" Think about it. I earned that money, I paid it (via taxes) to the government, now I want it back to spend on the things I want to spend it on.

So Dr. EduGram, what's so bad about the public choice theory? Well, I'll answer that question with another question: If it's so good for education, why wouldn't be good for other government expenditures?

Going to my friend's question, he paid in the money and now he wants it back to send his kid to charter school. Can I do that with my gas tax? I mean, I pay all that gas tax every year and I still have potholes in my town. Give everyone in my neighborhood our gas tax money and I promise you our roads will all get an A on their School Performance Grades. Now, we don't actually measure private schools, er, roads, so we'll never know what score they actually get, but I'm pretty sure it's got to be an A. It's a private school, er road, after all. I mean, aren't my public roads with potholes "failing" anyway? Don't I deserve my gas tax back so I can fix them?

What about disaster relief funding? I don't live anywhere near a disaster area. Can I get my tax dollars back from that fund and spend them on watershed issues around my town just in case Laker Norman floods someday? I mean, I know it looks safe from I-77 but if those dams burst one day, I'm going to need to let my tax dollars follow the dams I want to build. Perhaps that dam used to work for us, but society is changing and it's time for me to spend my tax dollars on the dam in front of my neighborhood. I'm sure the folks in actual disaster areas will understand. I mean, all residents of NC pay state taxes which go to our State Emergency and Disaster Response Fund. If residents decide they want to build their own disaster-prevention system, why should they not get their fair share of the pot they paid into?

I realize I'm not changing a lot of minds right now. But I'd ask you to think about what we've said here. The NCGA would never dream of allowing highway funds to be spent by each individual taxpayer. The NCGA would never dream of letting those disaster funds to be spent on a per-person basis for whatever their individual needs might be. But for some reason, in some states, and now in North Carolina, taking education money and handing it to an individual taxpayer is being advocated as exactly the potion we need to solve our ills.

In North Carolina, we have a teacher vacancy crisis with more than 5,500 classrooms across our state without a full-time teacher in them. That's a 5.9% shortage of needed teachers for our traditional public-school students. 10% of our teachers left the profession last year alone. Further depleting the funds necessary to train, hire, and retain teachers by throwing money at private schools will only make this worse. Just using these additional dollars and nothing else, the NCGA could instead give all teachers an additional 3.4% pay increase.

HB 823 only serves one purpose... to ensure the children of Jeff Bezos, Alice Walton, and James Goodnight (the wealthiest of the wealthy) qualify for a public subsidy for a private school. A real riches-to-riches story, if you will.

Don't give any more money to schools that aren't required to have the same School Performance scores and grades applied to them as the 115 LEAs and the hundreds of charter schools do. Don't give more money to those wealthiest among us to the detriment of the people... all based on an economic theory that only Ellen DeGeneres could love.