Dive Brief:
- In June, Nevada passed a school choice law that essentially gave parents free rein to spend public dollars allotted for their children as they wish.
- Since the law’s passage, 1,200 applications for state dollars have poured in, and education officials are struggling to catch up and sort out accompanying implementation challenges.
- The law allows parents to use public dollars to pay for private tuition, home schooling materials, or even to combine public and private classes for their students — though students already enrolled in private programs are not eligible.
Dive Insight:
Other states have rejected school choice programs over concerns of funding religiously-affiliated schools. But in Nevada, the state has allowed families to take vouchers to any brick-and-mortar school of their choosing. As a result, the wave of applications, which is likely to grow as the program progresses, promises to strain both public and private systems. On the private side, some experts are concerned that as demand grows, the private school sector — which is relatively small in Nevada — will be unable to meet it. On the public side, public schools are already crammed and are now concerned about a wave of school choice enrollees straining their systems.
"That's not, practically speaking, happening," Sue Blakely, the founder of a private Christian school outside of Las Vegas, told Education Week. "The public schools here are very, very full. For them to make those accommodations is next to impossible."
As with school choice systems elsewhere, concerns have already started to brew about the accessibility for low-income families and students with disabilities.