Carolyn McKinney - Education tax credit bill would improve students' chances of achieving prosperity

Education tax credit bill would improve students' chances of achieving prosperity
By Carolyn McKinney, chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire

Right now, businesses contribute about one quarter of the state's revenue in the taxes they pay, and coincidentally, public education comprises about one quarter of the state's costs.

Unfortunately, the money the state is now siphoning away from its most productive citizens is being redistributed to an education system that is failing our children. Even as the state has devoted more hard-earned dollars to government-run education, 71 percent of the state's public schools are in need of improvement, according to a report released by the State Department of Education in April. That doesn't bode well for the prospect of more productive citizens in years to come.

An education tax credit bill that passed the Legislature, but was vetoed by the governor, presents a real opportunity to change the way New Hampshire conducts the business of education. If the governor's veto is overridden by the Legislature, the bill would for the first time allow the free market to work in education—just a little bit—by giving children assigned to a failing public school a chance to attend a better school, whether it is a private school in their home town or a public school in a community nearby. This will forever improve these children's chances for a more productive and prosperous life.

The bill accomplishes this novel goal by letting businesses decide how they want to spend the money they earned, rather than government taking it from them and redistributing it without their input. That's part of the free market component to the idea, which gives businesses an opportunity to decide whether 100 percent of their Business Profits Tax or Business Enterprise Tax payments will continue to fund the broken public education system or whether they'd like up to 85 percent of that money to instead help financially strained parents send their children to a better school. Each business leader will have the opportunity to choose which course to pursue, and the state will actually save hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process, according to the State Department of Revenue.

Of the money that is ultimately collected on a first-come, first serve basis from participating businesses, an independent scholarship organization will determine which children receive help to attend the school of their parents' choice, based on various metrics. This is another part of the free market component of the bill. Schools that do a better job educating children will attract more students, and the students the schools attract will receive a better education at a lower cost. 

While each scholarship organization must give an average $2,500 scholarship to each student, the bill allows some children to receive greater than that amount and some less than that amount. This flexibility will help more parents make the decision to enroll their children in a better school and give them an opportunity they wouldn't have otherwise had. And as the program showcases its successes over the years, as similar programs have in at least eight other states, future Legislatures will have the data needed to expand these opportunities to even more children.

It's true, some communities could lose adequacy funding up to a fixed amount for their own public schools if several of their students receive scholarships to attend different schools, but therein lies yet one more free market component of the bill. Clearly, no school will want to lose students and the adequacy grants that go with them, so this bill will motivate failing schools to improve the quality of their education—without using additional money. On a small scale, the bill could create a situation where schools consistently improve relative to other schools to compete for students, all while keeping their costs low relative to other schools—again, to compete for students.  

Experience has shown that public schools will not improve simply because the state spends more money to educate students the same way we're educating them now. In fact, the quality of education has fallen as taxpayers have devoted more of their hard-earned money to the current system. The only way to successfully improve the quality of education is to change the dynamic of the system by allowing competition into the marketplace, and this education tax credit bill does just that. 

By overriding the governor's veto and providing children with real alternatives to poorly performing schools, school administrators at many of today's failing schools will necessarily change their focus from raising as many tax dollars as they can to producing a quality service that satisfies their customers. In this case, those customers will grow up better equipped with the knowledge and skills they'll need to be productive, and that will position them well to contribute to the educational excellence of the generation that follows them.

Carolyn McKinney - Education tax credit bill would improve students' chances of achieving prosperity

Education tax credit bill would improve students' chances of achieving prosperity
By Carolyn McKinney, chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire

Right now, businesses contribute about one quarter of the state's revenue in the taxes they pay, and coincidentally, public education comprises about one quarter of the state's costs.

Unfortunately, the money the state is now siphoning away from its most productive citizens is being redistributed to an education system that is failing our children. Even as the state has devoted more hard-earned dollars to government-run education, 71 percent of the state's public schools are in need of improvement, according to a report released by the State Department of Education in April. That doesn't bode well for the prospect of more productive citizens in years to come.

An education tax credit bill that passed the Legislature, but was vetoed by the governor, presents a real opportunity to change the way New Hampshire conducts the business of education. If the governor's veto is overridden by the Legislature, the bill would for the first time allow the free market to work in education—just a little bit—by giving children assigned to a failing public school a chance to attend a better school, whether it is a private school in their home town or a public school in a community nearby. This will forever improve these children's chances for a more productive and prosperous life.

The bill accomplishes this novel goal by letting businesses decide how they want to spend the money they earned, rather than government taking it from them and redistributing it without their input. That's part of the free market component to the idea, which gives businesses an opportunity to decide whether 100 percent of their Business Profits Tax or Business Enterprise Tax payments will continue to fund the broken public education system or whether they'd like up to 85 percent of that money to instead help financially strained parents send their children to a better school. Each business leader will have the opportunity to choose which course to pursue, and the state will actually save hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process, according to the State Department of Revenue.

Of the money that is ultimately collected on a first-come, first serve basis from participating businesses, an independent scholarship organization will determine which children receive help to attend the school of their parents' choice, based on various metrics. This is another part of the free market component of the bill. Schools that do a better job educating children will attract more students, and the students the schools attract will receive a better education at a lower cost. 

While each scholarship organization must give an average $2,500 scholarship to each student, the bill allows some children to receive greater than that amount and some less than that amount. This flexibility will help more parents make the decision to enroll their children in a better school and give them an opportunity they wouldn't have otherwise had. And as the program showcases its successes over the years, as similar programs have in at least eight other states, future Legislatures will have the data needed to expand these opportunities to even more children.

It's true, some communities could lose adequacy funding up to a fixed amount for their own public schools if several of their students receive scholarships to attend different schools, but therein lies yet one more free market component of the bill. Clearly, no school will want to lose students and the adequacy grants that go with them, so this bill will motivate failing schools to improve the quality of their education—without using additional money. On a small scale, the bill could create a situation where schools consistently improve relative to other schools to compete for students, all while keeping their costs low relative to other schools—again, to compete for students.  

Experience has shown that public schools will not improve simply because the state spends more money to educate students the same way we're educating them now. In fact, the quality of education has fallen as taxpayers have devoted more of their hard-earned money to the current system. The only way to successfully improve the quality of education is to change the dynamic of the system by allowing competition into the marketplace, and this education tax credit bill does just that. 

By overriding the governor's veto and providing children with real alternatives to poorly performing schools, school administrators at many of today's failing schools will necessarily change their focus from raising as many tax dollars as they can to producing a quality service that satisfies their customers. In this case, those customers will grow up better equipped with the knowledge and skills they'll need to be productive, and that will position them well to contribute to the educational excellence of the generation that follows them.

Tim Pawlenty: America Wants School Reform (NRO)

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/245742/america-wants-school-reform-tim-pawlenty?page=1
 
Tim Pawlenty: America Wants School Reform
American schoolchildren do very badly on international comparisons. It’s not their fault.

The great tragedy of American education is not that the system fails so many children, but that we know why and yet do very little about it.
 
The statistics still shock, but they no longer surprise.
 
The United States today spends more money on education per pupil ($11,000) than almost any other country, and yet it routinely finishes near the bottom of international math, science, and literacy surveys. On average, our fourth-graders do pretty well, but by the time those children get to eighth grade they begin to slide, and by twelfth grade they can no longer keep up with many of their peers in other countries.
 
The situation for our minority students is even worse. According to a recent study, black and Latino students trail white students of the same age by the equivalent of two to three years of learning. And according to the Wall Street Journal, 10 percent of America’s high schools produce 50 percent of America’s dropouts, and African-American children have a 50-50 chance of attending one of them.
 
My state of Minnesota tells the story. We boast the nation’s highest ACT scores, and at least 70 percent of Minnesota kids graduate from high school. Sounds pretty good, right? But if you look deeper into the statistics, it turns out that fewer than half of Minnesota’s minority students graduate from high school. That pattern repeats itself across the nation.
 
And yet for decades, a cartel of teachers’ unions, bureaucrats, and politicians has stood in the way of innovation, reform, and results.
 
In Minnesota, we’ve made more progress than most. My administration created the nation’s first statewide performance-pay program, linking teacher compensation to classroom and student achievement rather than just seniority. We imposed rigorous math and science graduation standards. We established school report cards, so parents could follow the performance of their children’s schools.
 
We wanted to do so much more, and could have. But the teachers’ unions blocked us at every turn.
 
In eight years, the only major piece of my education agenda the unions supported was an $800 million increase in K–12 spending in the 2005–06 budget; nearly every other reform was rejected. For all their rhetoric about “the children,” when push comes to shove, what the teachers’ unions really want is raises, every year, for jobs they can never lose at schools that need never compete.

That entitlement mentality just won’t cut it any more. America’s education cartel is an indulgence we can no longer afford, either as citizens paying taxes to dysfunctional governments or as competitors in a global economic market.
 
That’s why the tide may finally be turning. Strapped by the recession and appalled by the status quo, the forces of reform are standing up to the schoolyard bullies in the education cartel, and winning. Teachers’ unions want money, and more of it. But the rest of America wants better education, and teachers’ unions are in the way.
 
In Florida, the state legislature finally passed landmark education reforms first championed by Gov. Jeb Bush; unfortunately, Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed the legislation. In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie fought to bring spiraling education costs under control, and he won voters’ support. In liberal cities like Washington, D.C., and New York City, schools chiefs have fired teachers who can’t teach and embraced charter schools.
 
Even President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are encouraging reform. Yes, the president killed school choice for poor kids in Washington, D.C., and he recently bailed out teachers’ unions with $31 billion we don’t have. But to the administration’s credit, Obama and Duncan have stuck to their guns on their Race to the Top initiative, which at least ties federal education dollars to structural changes in state education policies.
 
Private or religious schools should be an option for all Americans, not just the privileged few. Public schools should be forced to compete in a field where they will be judged by who has the best teachers and the best outcomes. Schools, districts, and states should embrace market-based reforms that reward good teachers and principals, while removing bad ones. And alternative formats like home schooling, vocational apprenticeships, and online learning should be supported and further integrated into our public systems.
 
At the federal level, we should create “charter states,” freeing states from the regulations tied to federal education dollars in exchange for transparency and, most important, results.
 
As schoolchildren return to class across the country this week, the forces for reform are closer than ever to guaranteeing every child a high-quality education. The era of education policy written for and by teachers’ unions is drawing to a close.
 
— Tim Pawlenty is finishing his second term as governor of Minnesota.