An article yesterday by the Washington Post’s Lauren Lumpkin stated that Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are trying to unbalance the three-sector approach to federal school funding in the District of Columbia to steer more money to private school vouchers. Remember that the three-sector approach has been in place since 2004, and was championed by Joseph E. Robert, Jr. , the Washington D.C. area philanthropist who passed away in 2011. It provides an equal amount of dollars to traditional and charter schools in addition to the scholarship plan. According to Ms. Lumpkin’s piece,

“Now, however, Republicans want to increase the voucher program’s share from $17.5 million to $26.25 million and cut D.C. public schools’ piece to one-sixth of the $52.5 million pot of funding — posing a funding crunch for the 50,000-student district.”

The justification for changing the formula is that costs to educate children have gone up dramatically in recent years. According to John Schilling, an educational consultant who for years worked at the American Federation for Children, “The Opportunity Scholarship Program desperately needs more funds. . . There’s tremendous demand for the program, and the reason the program needs more money is because it’s been flat-funded.” Mr. Schilling goes on to explain that due to inflation each scholarship is larger in size, which has translated into a lower number of children who can take advantage of them.

However, this move is fraught with risk. In the District, Mayor Muriel Bowser has been a consistent supporter of the Opportunity Scholarship Program. This makes logical sense in that it brings thousands of dollars each year to the regular schools and charters. But if DCPS loses this revenue I could see the chief executive changing her mind. In 2017, when the SOAR Act that funds the OSP was up for Congressional renewal, a majority of the D.C. Council wrote Congress opposing the voucher program and arguing that it should be shut down. President Biden has stated that he wants to end the program in fiscal year 2023.

My view is that if Republicans want to increase the dollar amount of the scholarships, they should also provide an equal amount to charters and DCPS to maintain the three-sector approach.