Commentary on Indiana’s Projected Expansion of its “School Choice” Tuition Scholarship Program to $600 million by 2025

One of the concerns expressed by teachers who are skeptical of the viability of my education model is how can we afford the increase in the number of teachers needed to staff it. Today, finding significant new funding for public schools is problematic, so badly has the  faith in community public schools eroded.

Indiana provides a notable example. Because of its loss of faith in public schools, the state is making a significant investment in its “school choice” tuition voucher program. Consider this investment relative to the number of students who will benefit.

Indiana currently spends over $241 million in tuition subsidies so that 53,500 students can attend private schools. On April 27, 2023, The Indiana Capital Chronicle[1] reported the number of students participating in the program is expected to increase to 95,000 by 2025, at a cost of $600 million, or $6,315 per student.

Our question is, if a state’s faith in public schools was reclaimed, “what would be the impact of that same investment in community public schools and their students?” An investment of $241.4 million, for example, would enable Indiana to implement The Hawkins Model© in the K to 2 classrooms in over 400 elementary schools benefitting 108,000[2] students (270 “K to 2” students  X  400 schools).

By 2025, an investment of $600 million could fund the implementation of our model in the “K to 2” classrooms of 1,025 elementary schools and would benefit over a quarter of a million students across the state (270 students  X  1,025) schools) at a cost of $2,166 per student.[3]

The data suggest that Indiana is like the rest of the nation where the students from charter schools struggle as much or more than their counterparts in the community public schools those charter schools were intended to replace. We will let the readers decide for themselves how the cost-benefit ratio of a comparable investment in public schools compares to spending tthose funds to provide tuition subsidies for 95,000 students. Essentially, it is the difference between addressing the symptoms of the problems in public education instead of the root causes revolving around the deficiencies of Indiana’s and America’s education process. This process, which has become disconnected from its purpose, is used in charter, public, and faith-based schools throughout Indiana and the U.S. and leaves our students poorly prepared for the responsibilites of citizenship.

In that same article in the Indiana Capital Chronicle[4], Representative Phil Giaquinta, D – Fort Wayne, (The House Minority Leader) said “This budget is a handout for the state’s wealthiest families and individuals. Most people think that state subsidies go to the poor, but in the GOP supermajority they go to top-earners.”

We have two choices, if we stop to think about it. First, do we make the necessary investment in teachers to prepare our children for the responsibilities of citizenship, or do we spend comparable amounts to support the dependencies of young men and women who leave high school without the skills needed to fulfill their responsibilities? It truly is an either/or proposition.

Public education must do what all producers of new commercial products and services do. The people to whom we must appeal are consumers of education. We must give them something new, about which they can be excited. We must also consider that a quality education is our society’s intellectual infrastructure. We will not get to the future toward which we are striving over the rickety bridge that represents education in America. We assert that The Hawkins Model© is that new and exciting product that will transform education across the nation.