Tuition tax credits save state AND students

And why we need that now:

For those of you who in smaller towns, suburbs and rural areas of Missouri whose eyes have been trained on the urban education issues of Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis, swing those peepers back to your communities.

Wyaconda is a small district in Clark County, Missouri serving only 32 K-8 students. The district pays for 13 high school students who go to neighboring high schools. It is one of three unaccredited school districts in Missouri, along with Riverview Gardens and St. Louis Public Schools.

One can only imagine the difficulties faced by such a small school district. Funding for administration, structure and teachers has to be stretched to the limit, and they are now facing the closure of their school and the students could be transferred to other districts by the authority of DESE.

This is enough to upset some, like Brock Kirchner, a seventh grader whose entire family attended the school. “This school is a really great school,” said Kirchner.

Distributing 32 students to neighboring districts would not be an overarching burden to the state, though it would be disappointing to those students. But when looking statewide, at Riverview Gardens 7800 with an assessed value of $275 million, it makes me wonder if more money makes a better district. In St. Louis, spending per pupil was over $12,000 in 2003 with a recent enrollment of $32,000 students.

Let’s consider what the closing of St. Louis public schools and Riverview Gardens could mean. The re-distribution of 40 thousand students to other districts would cause a considerable burden on other districts and their taxpayers. This is the option that DESE reserves for schools like Wyaconda which have lost accreditation and are ceasing to show adequate improvement, yet the strain of that option for larger districts may be why DESE hasn’t proffered that as an option for St. Louis and Riverview Gardens.

That is why a recent paper by economics professor Mike Podgursky may be a head-turner in the next legislative session; while the fate of students in unaccredited schools hangs in the balance. Podgursky outlines a tuition tax credit that would specifically benefit low-income students. A scholarship fund would provide students seeking other educational options with a certain amount to put towards private school tuition.

In the past tuition tax credits have been lambasted by critics who would have us believe that loss of tax revenue through the credit would drain funds from public schools. Podgursky’s study of the fiscal benefits that other states receive from tuition tax credit programs proves that line of thinking patently wrong: in fact, it could save the state at least $7 million. The gist of the paper is that the amount paid by the state per pupil is substantially higher than the amount given out per student through scholarship. Podgusrky estimates that savings could be as high as $17 million, and for outlying districts like Wyaconda, that could mean plenty of extra money in the budget to keep them on their feet.

This is a win-win idea for students in failing schools and for districts that are truly in need of more funding. Read the entire paper here.