Study Reveals School Choice Savings Decreasing Education Spending

By Jeanie Lindsay, WNIN

June 25, 2021

A new study says school choice options in Indiana have saved the state millions in education spending. But researchers say the cost-savings come as the state spends less on education than it did more than a decade ago.

According to an analysis from the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University, Indiana saved nearly $90 million during the 2019-2020 school year because of school choice. Much of the savings came from private school vouchers because those are funded at a lower per-student rate.

But economist and study co-author Michael Hicks said the choice option most students in Indiana use is a transfer between public schools – and it saves the state money when kids go to schools that receive less funding per student in the state's formula.

"The real beneficiaries of school choice have been high performing local public schools," he said.

Dagney Faulk, CBER director of research, said there hasn't been much analysis of school choice in Indiana, but she plans to look into the academic effects, as well as the changing financial impact, of choice in the future.

"We just need to do a better job of analyzing the impacts of that, because we spend a lot of money on school choice and we don't know a lot about the impacts," Faulk said.

Faulk and Hicks said the state's recent expansion of the school voucher program will likely reduce the amount of savings the state has seen so far.

The study also highlights a decrease in state spending on education over the past decade when adjusted for inflation. The report says for every one dollar the state saved through choice, lawmakers have reduced state education spending by another seven dollars.

Indiana's largest early learning nonprofit is awarding a handful of groups $100,000 in grant funding, aimed at streamlining business services for child care providers to save them time and money.

Gov. Eric Holcomb said he does not support public schools requiring a COVID-19 vaccination.

Community organizations and schools across Indiana will receive more than $120 million in grant funding from the state as part of efforts to support student learning after a massively disrupted school year.

WNIN is the NPR/PBS affiliate in Evansville, Indiana. We serve Southwestern Indiana, Western Kentucky and Southern Illinois from our multimedia facility located on the Ohio River in downtown Evansville. For the past several years, the recognized quality of our local news has placed us among the best small market radio news organizations in the nation.