When it was passed two years ago, Nevada鈥檚 plan for education savings accounts鈥攁 voucher-like program鈥攚as hailed as the most ambitious private-school-choice program in the nation because it was open to all of the state鈥檚 nearly 460,000 public school students.
But legal challenges and shifting political winds in the state have stalled that program indefinitely. School choice supporters are split on what the turn of events in Nevada means for the momentum of similarly styled programs nationwide.
A last-ditch legislative effort to fund Nevada鈥檚 education savings accounts鈥攚hich would give all public school students the option to take state money allocated to them and use it for private school tuition or other approved education-related expenses鈥攃rumbled in the face of uncompromising Democratic opposition. The Nevada legislature won鈥檛 meet again until 2019, essentially leaving education savings accounts dormant for the thousands of families that have applied to use them.
鈥淚t鈥檚 very disappointing, of course, especially for the 8,000-plus families that applied,鈥� said Matthew Ladner, a senior research fellow at the Charles Koch Institute who helped craft and defend the first law of this type.
鈥淭he program is still there. Lawmakers could pick this up in the future, but right now, this is a pretty bitter setback.鈥�
In Arizona, by contrast, lawmakers this year dramatically expanded the state鈥檚 education- savings-account program, which was created in 2011. After years of incremental expansion, Arizona鈥檚 program is now open to all 1.1 million public school students.
Related bills were proposed in 18 states this year, according to the Foundation for Excellence in Education, which helped craft and pass Nevada鈥檚 bill in 2015. None, besides Arizona鈥檚, have passed. 鈥淣evada set the stage in terms of a universal program,鈥� said Adam Peshek, the director of education choice at the foundation, an education group founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. 鈥淚 think it in many ways helped Arizona to turn their program into a universal program this year. 鈥� The benefit of Nevada is that they set the precedent.鈥�
Starting a Trend?
Passed in the final days of the 2015 legislative session under a Republican-controlled statehouse, Nevada鈥檚 education-savings-account program shook the education world. Education savings accounts were a relatively new policy idea that originated in Arizona and were popping up in a few other places as an alternative to traditional school vouchers. Like vouchers, the early ESAs had fairly strict restrictions on who could use them and were often limited to students with disabilities or from low-income families.
Education savings accounts allow states to place all, or nearly all, the state money earmarked for a student in a special account that parents can draw on for approved educational expenses, including tuition at religious schools. In Nevada, that aid would amount to more than $5,000 per student.
When Nevada鈥檚 universal program was passed, voucher advocates predicted that other states would quickly follow suit.
But the groundbreaking program never fully launched because of disputes over how to pay for it. While more than 8,000 families signed up for education savings accounts, the state was blocked from distributing funds until legal challenges to the program were resolved. Two separate lawsuits made their way to the Nevada Supreme Court, where justices ruled in October that the program was unconstitutional because of how it was funded.
However, the state鈥檚 high court didn鈥檛 rule that the program itself was unconstitutional on the grounds of funneling public money into private, religious schools, leaving a path open to advocates: find a new funding source, and education savings accounts could be resurrected.
But doing so became substantially more difficult when Democrats took control of the Nevada legislature in November.
And public scrutiny over the types of families that were seeking to use ESAs put the program on the defensive.
鈥淭here was data that showed that a lot of applicants who signed up were from affluent neighborhoods, not low-income neighborhoods,鈥� said David Sciarra, the executive director of the Education Law Center, a national legal and advocacy group that helped launch one of the lawsuits against the education-savings-account program. 鈥淭he whole issue of unaccountability of the private schools and no anti-discrimination requirements, things like that, a lot of those issues really surfaced during the court case.鈥�
Federal Attention
And then there was the national debate over school vouchers spurred on by President Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos, his education secretary. The Trump administration continues to signal that expanding school choice is a priority, and anti-voucher groups, such as Nevada鈥檚 statewide teachers鈥� union, worked diligently to tie Nevada鈥檚 education-savings-account program to the president and DeVos. It鈥檚 a tactic that education advocates opposed to vouchers have been deploying across the country, but whether it鈥檚 working isn鈥檛 clear just yet.
鈥淭he exact impact the federal debate is having on the state level is really difficult to say,鈥� said Ladner.
At the beginning of Nevada鈥檚 legislative session, Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval proposed carving out $60 million from the state鈥檚 general fund to pay for the accounts, but Democratic lawmakers refused. The subsequent power struggle between Democrats and Republicans over the ESA program nearly derailed the entire state budget for fiscal 2017-19, but lawmakers reached a compromise with less than 24 hours left in the legislative session鈥攐ne that didn鈥檛 include funding for the education savings accounts.
But school choice advocates didn鈥檛 walk away from the session completely empty-handed. The budget deal contains an extra $20 million over the next two years for a separate private-school-choice program that has a cap on how much a family can earn in order to be eligible for the aid. The Opportunity Scholarship program also was passed in 2015, but it was eclipsed by the much more ambitious education-savings-accounts program. It gives tax credits to businesses for donating to a private school scholarship program.
That one-time infusion of funds will come from taxing marijuana sales and growers, which was a priority for Democratic lawmakers. Marijuana was legalized in the state through a ballot initiative last fall.
Both voucher supporters and opponents don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 over for Nevada鈥檚 ESA program. Among them is Ladner, of the Charles Koch Institute, who said many of the issues that made ESAs attractive to lawmakers and families in the first place, such as extreme overcrowding in the public schools, still exist.
And then there鈥檚 the state supreme court鈥檚 ruling, which leaves the door open, said Rubin Murillo, the president of the Nevada State Education Association.
鈥淔or us it鈥檚 all about making sure that we listen to what the concerns are about our public school system and that we act on them, not just pass the concerns along,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e absolutely have to act upon it; that鈥檚 what鈥檚 going to be our ally in terms of fighting the funding of vouchers in the future.鈥�
