Eddie Campbell weighs in on scholarship tax credits proposal

By EDDIE CAMPBELL

President, Kentucky Education Association 

Let’s call scholarship tax credits what they really are—private-school vouchers and tax shelters for the wealthy that take money away from public school students across the commonwealth. They are tax loopholes created for corporations and wealthy individuals, cloaked as charity for poor children.

Right now, Kentucky is desperate for new sources of revenue. Under Kentucky’s proposed scholarship tax credit bill, $25 million would be set aside to be credited back to donors, with the amount increasing every year. What sense does it make to take more money away from public education?

In the last state budget, Kentucky higher education funding was cut $23 million. Zero dollars were provided for new K-12 textbooks and instructional materials. If there wasn’t $23 million available for books we should already be funding, why would legislators be willing to forego $25 million in collectible tax revenue in this budget?  

In a 2017 analysis, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) took a look at how “scholarship tax credit” programs impacted the budgets of the 17 states where they had been put into effect. Taken together, these states were diverting more than $1 billion per year from the public coffers toward private schools via tax credits. Kentucky taxpayers simply cannot afford that.

Supporters of the private school vouchers say it’s about helping poor kids. They claim the resulting scholarships provide opportunity and choices for lower-income families, those with disabilities, or kids from foster homes.  The trouble is, these scholarships can go to students who come from families in Kentucky where income is as much as $91,020 annually.

The real concern in education is closing opportunity gaps for disadvantaged students; that is a legitimate issue that needs real solutions.  Scholarship tax credits are not among those solutions.

Supporters of this scheme can’t point to verifiable evidence that these scholarships close achievement gaps for disadvantaged students. They use anecdotal stories and unverified private polling to make their case. But there is plenty of research to show that early interventions in the form of universal pre-school, access to quality health and dental care, and real solutions to homelessness and food insecurity actually do make a difference in student learning.

The fact is that Kentucky needs more revenue, not less. Establishing yet another way for a small number of high-income citizens to avoid paying taxes is a step backward that will continue to undermine Kentucky’s ability to provide all citizens better funded public schools, better roads and bridges, and more reliable public services.

These private-school vouchers benefit the few at the expense of the many.  Haven’t we all had enough of that?”