Let’s merge basic income with school choice

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is an outspoken advocate of government-provided direct cash payments, especially in minority and disadvantaged communities. At the same time, our public school system is letting down children in such neighborhoods and all too often not giving them the tools and safe environments to succeed. We’d like to offer a solution that empowers students while meeting many of Ocasio-Cortez’s goals.

In Ocasio-Cortez’s hometown, New York City, government is spending $28,000 per student per year in taxpayer dollars for public schools. Tuition and fees for private schools in the area are much lower. The average tuition for the 2021 school year at private high schools within five miles of ZIP code 10462, where Ocasio-Cortez’s office is located, is $6,125, according to Private School Review. For K-8 private schools in the region, the average tuition is $4,945.

Academic achievement in New York City is woeful. In 2019, just 32 percent of New York City fourth graders scored “proficient” in mathematics on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Worse, just 27 percent of the city’s eighth graders scored “proficient,” indicating that performance gets worse with more years in the system. For reading, those respective numbers were 27 percent and 26 percent.

That is what New Yorkers are getting for their $28,000 per child per year.

Fortunately, there’s a way to ensure that every child in the city gets their money’s worth for this taxpayer outlay: allow parents in Ocasio-Cortez’s district to choose to stay in the public school system or receive $10,000 per year for private education expenses and another $18,000 per year as a cash payment or in a savings account that will mature when the student graduates from high school. Under the savings plan, each student would graduate from high school with more than $200,000 in cash savings that cost taxpayers no more than education in the current system.

The grants can be conditioned upon each student being in good standing at a school or being demonstrably homeschooled. If a child is not receiving an education through one of these means, the student and/or the student’s family does not receive any of the additional cash.

This program would provide parents and students with a big incentive to find a school where their children can thrive and to ensure that they do the work necessary for success. No school would be forced to take any particular student, though every student would have plenty of leverage via the student’s ability to pay up to $10,000 per year in tuition, fees and expenses.

This is important: One big reason that government school advocates give for poor academic achievement is that these children come from challenging home situations. Translation: they blame the parents. This plan would give those children a much better chance at success, as their parents would know from the start that the extra $18,000 in cash payment is conditioned upon the student attending and adequately performing in school.

Not only would schools compete for students, but students would compete for schools. This competition would provide for much greater order and safety in the schools by giving parents and students a direct monetary incentive to find a good school and succeed in the classroom.

A big expense for government-run schools is the transportation of students to the school buildings from their homes. Under this plan, transportation can come out of the family’s direct education expenses or its discretionary grant, eliminating this enormous overhead cost.

Teacher unions, administrators and other public-education system beneficiaries may hate this plan. They prefer to have their guaranteed market and surefire revenues. The system, however, does not exist for them, but for the benefit of students and the public.

The beneficiaries of the current system rely on the notion that parents aren’t smart enough, engaged enough or sufficiently sophisticated to be able to make good choices for their children. Given what the NYC schools are accomplishing (or failing to accomplish) in terms of academic achievement in core subjects, those objections seem hollow. Moreover, parents and students would have tremendous incentive to identify and succeed in a public or private school.

Why not set up a pilot program in Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional district and empower parents and students to decide and benefit? Perhaps this would prove an excellent program throughout the nation, as well.

James Taylor (JTaylor@heartland.org) is president of The Heartland Institute. S.T. Karnick (SKarnick@heartland.org) is senior fellow and director of publications at The Heartland Institute.