Outschool LEGO classes and 3D printers. Routers, computers, and Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions. Ballet lessons and a model train. These are just a few of the items that homeschoolers are buying with state funds through a new program run by a Utah-based company in collaboration with an Indiana public school district.

Here’s how it works, as reported by Chalkbeat Indiana and education blogger Steve Hinnefeld. Tech Trep, the Utah company, advertises its services to homeschoolers. Cloverdale Community Schools, the Indiana public school district that partners with Tech Trep, receives tuition support from the state for each kid who enrolls. Cloverdale keeps 20% of the state funding and passes the rest to Tech Trep. Of that, families can use a point system to order up to $1,700 worth of educational items or services per child.

Meanwhile, Indiana’s refusal to fund public school textbooks means that parents and guardians of children in public school must pay to “rent” basic curricular materials such as books and technology—including parents who send their kids to Cloverdale's public schools. For a family with three children in public school, that can mean an annual expenditure of over $500. And public school teachers routinely pay out of pocket to decorate their classrooms and to provide books, Kleenex, snacks, and writing utensils for their students. In the pandemic, some public school staff have needed to purchase their own PPE.

Yet somehow Indiana has money to spare when it comes to private educational expenditures, even when “educational” is loosely defined.

A recent discussion in a private Facebook group for Tech Trep families and others interested in joining Tech Trep made it clear that some enrollees are there just to make purchases with state money. Speaking of other Tech Trep services, one commenter said “I use NONE of TT resources. It’s nice that they are there if I need them but I don’t.” The parent continued, “I school my children on my own and at home. I consider that homeschooling. Tech Trep calls it distance learning and that works legally for them...”

Why is this legal? 

Resources invested in public schools benefit all the kids in a community across years. Whether such dollars pay for online math textbooks, school playgrounds, or science labs, an elected board has the responsibility of making sure resources are fairly distributed across school populations. But a state handout to homeschoolers is different. A model train may benefit one child. A Netflix subscription may entertain a home. But does Indiana really want to pay Cloverdale, a rural school district, to launder state funds so that homeschoolers can purchase Netflix subscriptions and trips to the zoo, while many public school districts struggle to pay and retain teachers, maintain and repair school buildings, and offer high-quality curricular materials that they hope their parents and caregivers can pay for?

​Lots of public school families would benefit from state-subsidized private lessons, LEGO bricks, and personal computers. Is Indiana ready to extend those benefits to all? Or perhaps more on point: Is Indiana actually preparing to substitute those kinds of à la carte purchases for the structured education and opportunities provided in public school classrooms? While Senate GOP leaders have backpedaled a bit on the concept of a new choice path to benefit some students, education scholarship accounts (ESAs) are still being considered this legislative session. The bizarrely under-the-radar Tech Trep arrangement, with its lack of oversight, may be providing a glimpse of the Wild West of ESAs—a program which wouldn’t even be administered by the Indiana Department of Education, but would fall under the purview of the state treasurer. 

How long will one small rural school district and an out-of-state business be able to profit off sending state money to homeschooling families for private purchases, as the Indiana Association of Home Educators pointed out back in October? For shame, Indiana. It’s time to shut this “program” down.


P.S. In a legally dubious move (at least in Indiana), Tech Trep advertises to families in its order form that "New Technology items purchased 100% with state funds remain the property of the state for 3 years. Many families like to pay for part of the cost to be exempt from this rule and be able to keep the items at the end of the year. This year, you may privately purchase an Amazon gift card for approximately 10% of the cost of the item and give the gift card number to the person placing the order during the zoom meeting, so that we are only paying for 90% of the cost and you can keep the item at the end of the year as a surplus item."

Our public school districts have never offered that if we pay 10% up front, we can keep the iPads and laptops that we rent from the district through textbook/technology fees!
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Indiana Coalition for Public Education–Monroe County (ICPE–Monroe County) advocates for all children to have high quality, equitable, well-funded schools that are subject to democratic oversight by their communities.

​We are a nonpartisan and nonprofit group of parents, grandparents, caregivers, teachers, and other community members of Monroe County and surrounding areas.

As Indiana’s legislators look to make school vouchers for private school tuition accessible for even wealthier families, they are also considering another form of vouchers called “Education Scholarship Accounts” (ESAs). These would be equivalent to debit cards loaded annually with $5,000 to $7,000 (plus up to $9,100 for some special education students) that parents/guardians could spend on educational services in lieu of sending their kid(s) to a public school. House Bill 1005 would make ESAs available for special education students, foster students, and active military families, but just as voucher eligibility has been expanded over the years, we can expect the same for ESAs.

Here’s how ESAs grew in Arizona between 2012 and 2020:

Source: EdChoice

While the ESA amount could be spent on private school tuition, it could also be used for therapy, transportation, school uniforms, and likely music lessons and sports camps. The language in HB 1005 is “qualified school, public school, or participating entity,” (p. 27, line 12), and the participating entities would be approved by the state treasurer. So what’s the hitch? If you are already homeschooling or paying private school tuition, free money probably sounds nice.

What are the problems with ESAs?

1. Diversion of funding from public school programs.
Creating ESAs is like waving cash in front of families to incentivize them to leave their public schools. It also gives state money to families who were already homeschooling or already in private school. Removing money from public school programs will weaken the public schools and charter schools on which 94% of Indiana’s students depend. 
​
2. High costs for à la carte education.
As parents of high-need special ed students testified in education committee hearings (also here), the amount of funding the state proposes to provide through ESAs would be insufficient to purchase comprehensive services in the private education marketplace. Some children receive full-time one-on-one aides in public school, for instance, because public schools are required to provide a free appropriate public education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Private schools have no such responsibility, and neither would a for-profit or nonprofit “participating entity.” Private entities could pocket state funds without fully meeting kids' needs, while public schools, which already don't get enough money for special education*, would be expected to provide full services with less.

Source (for average public school special ed expenses per pupil): Center on Reinventing Public Education report, “Ensuring All Students in Indiana Receive Their Fair Share of Funding.”

3. Lack of oversight.
The program would be overseen by the state treasurer rather than the Indiana Department of Education, and the bill expressly forbids government regulation of the schools/entities participating: It specifies that a state agency “may not in any way regulate the educational program of a nonpublic school that accepts money from an account under this article,” (p. 38, line 13).**

The public has an interest in the quality of the educational environment provided for children through state dollars. This begins with physical environment and infrastructure. Do the buildings meet the fire code and are they free of hazards such as lead paint or accessible toxic household cleaners? Is the drinking water clean? It extends to the psychological environment. Are children in safe and positive spaces free of manipulation and abuse? Under HB 1005, no state entity would have the responsibility to inquire.

Most centrally, though, the quality of the educational environment is bound up in curriculum. With HB 1005, no state entity would have the right to ascertain whether children are receiving a developmentally appropriate, challenging curriculum that adheres to state academic standards. The language of the bill appears to guarantee that state funds could be used for conversion therapy or religious instruction. 

4. No requirement for a certified teacher.
In fact, HB 1005 prohibits the state from making any teacher or staff hiring requirements for participating schools or entities (page 38, line 17). So it sounds like the state could not even require nonaccredited schools to verify that a potential hire does not have a record as a child sex offender. 

5. An environment ripe for scammers.
Because parents would be making the decisions about how to spend this money, service providers and vendors of curricular materials would advertise directly to parents. Many parents lack the knowledge and training to assess the quality of such programs and could be vulnerable to unscrupulous operators.

6. Incentivization of year-to-year rollover of dollars.
Parents could roll over as much as $2,000 per year. This means parents could spend as little as $3,000 on a child’s education in one year. What kind of education would a kid be getting for that sum?

7. Excessive administrative costs, or an invitation to fraud. 
How will the state treasurer ensure that the money is actually spent on kids’ education? Either the treasurer will spend lots of time and money to ensure that participating entities are operating responsibly and that invoices are accurate for services truly rendered, or not. In the first case, taxpayers will be paying a huge amount for inefficient administration even as public schools are under pressure to consolidate and reduce administrative costs. In the second case, we will see an explosion of a free-for-all which will deplete state coffers while encouraging fraud and exploiting children.

​Given Indiana’s record of lax oversight of charter schools, especially the virtual charter schools that have proven lucrative for their operators, a proliferation of fraud seems likely. And while legislators are the ones who will vote for HB 1005 (or the form of it included in the budget bill), it’s Indiana’s taxpayers who will foot the bill, and Indiana’s children who will pay.

To improve education in Indiana, we need to reject ESAs and instead invest in the essential community infrastructure of public schools.​ As parent and attorney MaryAnn Schlegel Ruegger says, "What special education students most need is for their public school special education services and general education classrooms to be adequately funded, to allow the time and attention and teacher expertise they need to be successful." 
​
​–Jenny Robinson and Keri Miksza

*Appendix A of the 2020 CRPE report shows how Indiana's special education funding lags that in Ohio, South Dakota, and New Orleans:

See also the Education Commission of the States' 50-state comparison of special education funding from March 2019.

**HB 1005 prohibits the state from regulating participating entities. An excerpt:

Chapter 5. Participating Entities

Sec. 1. It is the intent of the general assembly to honor the autonomy of nonpublic schools that choose and are authorized to become participating entities under this article. A nonpublic eligible school is not an agent of the state or federal government, and therefore: (1) the treasurer of state, state board, department, or any other state agency may not in any way regulate the educational program of a nonpublic school that accepts money from an account under this article, including the regulation of curriculum content, religious instruction or activities, classroom teaching, teacher and staff hiring requirements, and other activities carried out by the nonpublic school; (2) the creation of the program does not expand the regulatory authority of the state or the state's officers to impose additional regulation of nonpublic schools beyond those necessary to enforce the requirements of the program; and (3) an accredited nonpublic school that is a participating entity may provide for the educational needs of students without government control.

___________________________________________________
Indiana Coalition for Public Education–Monroe County (ICPE–Monroe County) advocates for all children to have high quality, equitable, well-funded schools that are subject to democratic oversight by their communities.

​We are a nonpartisan and nonprofit group of parents, grandparents, caregivers, teachers, and other community members of Monroe County and surrounding areas.

Every crisis is an opportunity…for profiteers and privatizers.

During the pandemic, the demands on our public schools have multiplied. Public schools throughout Indiana are now supplying both in-person and online instruction. Teachers are stretched thin as they teach in-person and online students and adjust their curricula accordingly. Administrators are working around the clock helping school nurses contact-trace on top of their normal duties. School bus drivers are doubling up their routes in order to carry fewer students at a time. Districts are spending to improve their HVAC systems. School social workers are trying to track down and provide services to the students who have gone missing even as they give more assistance to the students who are present but whose parents have lost jobs and livelihoods.

In other words, our public schools need more resources—they need more money—to be able to answer the depth of need in our communities. Yet due to Indiana’s funding model, which relies on per-student tuition support, public schools are already expecting lower revenue; in the pandemic, some students have disappeared, and many families have delayed kindergarten entrance.

Let’s be clear: Public schools are the only schools that are legally obligated to educate and serve each and every child regardless of disability status, religion, or family income. We require our public schools to make or find the capacity to serve every child.

Even before the pandemic, the fiscal situation for public schools was grim:

1. Teacher salaries in Indiana were last in the country for salary growth between 2002 and 2017; teachers here make less than they do in all the surrounding states.
2. Teachers routinely pay out of pocket to decorate their classrooms and buy essential supplies.
3. The state of Indiana does not pay textbook costs. It expects school districts to pass those costs along to families.

That sound you hear is the slow sweep of vultures’ wings. The chair of the Indiana House Education Committee, Robert Behning, has introduced a bill, HB 1005, that would give more state education dollars to parents who can already afford private school tuition. It would lift the family income cap for a family of four to $145,000 in 2023 (already, families of four earning up to $96,000 qualify for a 50% voucher) and remove the income tiers within the program so that all eligible families can receive a 90% voucher. This expansion would come at a high cost to taxpayers. Read Vic’s Statehouse Notes #348 to learn more about the fiscal impact.

Were you paying $15,765 per child to send your two kids to Cathedral High School? No problem. The state of Indiana can pitch in. Or $21,795 for your junior at the International School of Indiana? If HB 1005 passes, the state of Indiana has your back.

Educating children well is expensive, and the expense is worth it. But there’s a difference in how money is stewarded. When public money goes to public schools, it’s like investing in our community parks or city fire departments. The investments we make in infrastructure and personnel benefit the whole community for generations. When we send state money to private schools, the money may benefit individual families, but the costs disappear into a private world…a gated community, accessible only according to the values and capability of the school leadership, unaccountable to the whole.

And while money follows children into private schools, their rights do not. Private schools don’t need to serve students with disabilities, or LGBTQ families, or families with different belief systems; they can fire their gay married employees, as Roncalli and Cathedral did at the behest of their Archdiocese; they don't need to adhere to state curriculum requirements.

Vouchers in Indiana are enabling white flight, just like the segregation academies that are their antecedents. Private schools' student bodies may be much whiter than the communities in which they are located. Roncalli High School in Indianapolis has just 7 Black students this year in a school population of 1062. (Nearby public high schools in Southport and Beech Grove have 213 Black students out of 2,326 and 126 of 1005, respectively.) Even with the current voucher income limit, Roncalli received $1.8 million dollars in voucher money in 2019-20.

There’s time to stop this bill, but it will take many voices. Email the House Education Committee (addresses are below). You can use the talking points ICPE has compiled. Do it today or tomorrow. The committee meets Wednesday. If you are on fire, consider signing up to testify in person at the committee meeting in Indianapolis on Wednesday. Rumor has it that privatization/school choice advocates will be there in force.
 
Jenny Robinson and Keri Miksza
 
P.S. Guess what? There’s an even worse part of HB 1005, a foot in the door for the blandly named “Education Savings Accounts,” which are like vouchers on steroids. More about that in another post.

PPS. Contact Indiana’s House Education Committee to oppose HB 1005:

Republican Representatives Behning ([email protected]), Jordan ([email protected]), Carbaugh ([email protected]), Clere ([email protected]), Cook ([email protected]), Davis ([email protected]), Goodrich ([email protected]), Teshka ([email protected]), Thompson ([email protected])
Democrat Representatives Smith ([email protected]), DeLaney ([email protected]), Klinker ([email protected]), Pfaff ([email protected])

Here are all the addresses together if you want to cut and paste:
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],  [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

And Indiana PTA has created a quick form letter that allows you to send a quick email.