Enhancing Private School Choice Would Help Nebraska

Details: 21 January 2011

Coming up soon is another of the annual celebrations of Catholic Schools Week across the nation and here in Nebraska. It is appropriate and necessary to celebrate that operating elementary and secondary schools is a vitally important mission of the Church.

The theme of Catholic Schools Weeks always provides an important message. This year’s theme is no different: "Catholic Schools: A+ for America." The double meaning of the second part is clever and provides a strong emphasis.

Catholic schools in Nebraska warrant an A+ grade, certainly for performing such an important and powerful mission of the Church: assisting parents in educating and forming young people academically, socially, morally and spiritually, so they can be happy and fulfilled during their earthly lives and secure their eternal happiness in heaven.

The grade is also A+ for contributing to the common good, to the state and its local communities. Catholic schools certainly are "a plus" for America, for Nebraska, and for communities and neighborhoods. As alternatives to government-sponsored education, they are assets and resources, in terms of both the positive contributions of their independent educational philosophies and the cost savings they realize for all taxpayers. Catholic schools (and their independent and parochial counterparts) are more than valuable enough assets that they should not be taken for granted by government leaders and policy-makers. Rather, they should be encouraged and promoted as a matter of parental choice, for all the contributions they make, including educational competition and quality.

A way of accomplishing this as a matter of public policy would be by making privately operated schools more affordable for more families. Legislation seeking to do this has been introduced in the 2011 session of the Nebraska Legislature.

LB 50, introduced early by Senator Bob Krist of Omaha, proposes to provide a state income-tax credit for individual and corporate contributions to specially formed, state-recognized, charitable organizations, which would be required to distribute no less than 95 percent of their annual revenue as scholarships, to enable children from income-qualified households to enroll in privately operated elementary or secondary schools.

So as not to "double-dip" with the Federal deduction for charitable contributions, the amount by which contributors could reduce their Nebraska income tax liability would be 65 percent of such contributions made during a tax year. There would be no maximum on any taxpayer’s qualifying contributions, but there would be an aggregate cap of $10 million for the first year, with incremental increases in that number thereafter.

Also by the design of LB 50, first-time scholarships would be available to students entering kindergarten, students entering ninth grade, and students transferring from any public school to any privately operated school in any K-12 grade. The means test would require, with respect to elementary students, that household income not exceed three times the standard used by the Federal government to determine eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch. The test would be four times that standard with respect to secondary students. All aspects of LB 50’s design are subject to amendment, of course.

In September 2009, a statewide survey of Nebraskans’ opinions on K-12 education and school choice options found 57 percent statewide support for a tax-credit-funded, private-school scholarship program based on financial need.

Just last June, a fiscal analysis commissioned by the Foundation for Educational Choice forecasted a net savings for both the State of Nebraska and local school districts from LB 67, the predecessor bill from the 2009-2010 legislative sessions. The fiscal analysis also concluded that if 80 percent of the tax-credit scholarships, at an average scholarship of $1,750, were awarded to students who otherwise would attend public schools, the net savings for the state for a 10-year period could be as high as $51 million. (This study is available on the Nebraska Catholic Conference website: www.nebcathcon.org/NFCSP.

Achieving cost savings is important any time, but even more so during a time like this, when government must fill a significant budget gap. The idea of enabling enhanced family choice of the asset that is privately-operated education ought to be considered. Whether the Legislature, in particular its Revenue Committee, will facilitate that consideration in a meaningful way remains to be seen. They have the tool in LB 50.

Catholic school parents and patrons might very well be the collective key to the outcome of LB 50. The more the legislators hear from their constituents on this idea, the more likely it will be that the bill is taken seriously and considered. Contact information is available from the Nebraska Federation of Catholic School Parents, a program of the Nebraska Catholic Conference: www.nebcathcon.org/NFCSP or 402/477-7517.

And finally... The sign outside a fast-food restaurant presents an interesting January message: "Keep your resolution. Add a salad." That’s clever marketing: right, a salad; an encouraging thought of sorts. From the restaurant’s perspective it’s better, of course, that you add a salad than substitute one.