LANSING (Mich.) — Betsy DeVos, former Education Secretary, backed Wednesday’s Michigan ballot drive that would allow students to attend private schools and cover other expenses through accounts that are funded by donations. This would allow them to claim tax deductions.
Critics compare the proposed scholarship funds with vouchers, and claim they would be unconstitutional because of the state’s ban against public assistance for private schools.
DeVos is a long-standing school choice advocate, whose family donated $400,000 to the Let MI Kids Learn committee. She encouraged residents to support the effort. It would be able to withstand legal challenges, she claimed. The contributions, for which individual and corporate donors would receive an equal income tax credit, would go to scholarships-granting organizations and not “become state money.”
“Parents do not have to send their children to schools that aren’t interested in what mom or dad think.” Signing these petitions will help ensure that every child has equal access to world-class education, no matter whether it’s private, charter, home pod, dual-enrolled online, earn and teach, tutor, after-school or extracurricular. This was DeVos’s statement during the administration of President Donald Trump. Since December, paid circulators have been working in the field.
To send the two initiatives to Congress, the group will need 340,000 valid signatures from voters. The measures could then be enacted by lawmakers, despite the objections of the Democratic Governor. Gretchen Whitmer’s November veto of identical bills was a resounding defeat.
DeVos was instrumental in leading a 2000 ballot initiative that was overwhelmingly rejected by voters. It would have required poor performing school districts to provide vouchers to students for private schools.
Whitmer, who is running for reelection in 2016, said that the new proposal would reduce state revenue by up to $500 million in its first year and make private schools tax shelters for the rich. Noting that charter schools in Michigan are run by for profit entities, and citing low reading scores as reasons, she called the move to privatize education a “catastrophic fail.”
Lonnie Scott, executive director at Progress Michigan, stated that this is an anti-public education initiative that will remove funding from schools during a teacher shortage. It will also be used to give tax cuts to DeVos’ allies.
DeVos stated that it was “ridiculous” for the wealthy to suggest the plan would be beneficial.
She explained that this is a way for individuals to redirect some of their tax bills to help students who are most in need.
Let MI Kids Learn had received $1.7 million in donations as of December 31, including $800,000. from Get Families Back to Work, a Washington, D.C.-based organization — which shares an office with the Republican Governors Association — along with $475,000 from conservative State Government Leadership Foundation.
The proposal would allow K-12 students to be eligible for scholarships provided their family income does not exceed twice the amount that is required to receive free or reduced price lunch ($98,050 for four families) or they are disabled or in foster care. Two-thirds of K-12 schoolchildren may be eligible.
Private school students could receive up to 90% of the minimum per-pupil funding from the state, which is $7,830 for this year. On a sliding scale, those whose incomes are between 100% and 200% of the threshold for free or reduced-lunch programs would be eligible for less.
Children who are enrolled in public schools can receive a maximum $500 per year or $1,100 for those with disabilities.
Funds could be used to pay school-related costs such as tuition, fees and tutoring, computers, software, instructional material, summer school, after school programming, transportation costs, athletic fees or school uniforms.
