Zach Wendling
LINCOLN — Educators from Iowa, Wisconsin and the National Education Association are joining Cornhusker State educators in urging Nebraskans to repeal a law that funds “education scholarships” for private K-12 schools.
The public school advocates said Nebraskans should vote to “repeal” on Referendum Measure 435 on the Nov. 5 ballot to remove the main section of Legislative Bill 1402, which was passed in April. The law appropriates $10 million annually so the State Treasurer’s Office can provide “education scholarships” for Nebraska families to attend private schools.
The Treasurer’s Office will join scholarship-granting organization Opportunity Scholarships of Nebraska on Thursday to announce that 4,000 students will receive all $10 million through the scholarships, regardless of the partial referendum on the general election ballot.
Ron Duff Martin, a Wisconsin educator who serves as an at-large member of the National Education Association, told the Nebraska Examiner that Milwaukee was really the “birthplace of the voucher program” in the early 1990s.
“From there it just grew,” Martin said. “It grew not only in Wisconsin, but we saw other states that adopted similar legislation.”
Stability of funding
Peggy Wirtz-Olsen, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, said the Wisconsin legislation has led to funding two systems, one of which included $568.5 million in taxpayer dollars in the 2022-23 school year going to a “web of private voucher systems.”
“That labyrinth, that web, is entirely, in terms of funding, unsustainable,” Wirtz-Olsen said.
Martin said that in Wisconsin, lawmakers set the state budget for public education and then “skim off the top” for private-school vouchers.
“Our local school districts are having to go to referendum to keep the doors open and the lights on,” Wirtz-Olsen said.
In Nebraska, the vast majority of public school funding comes from property taxes, which are assessed locally. The state offers $1,500 in foundation aid per public school student, and public school advocates have expressed concern in losing students needed to help stabilize funding that shifts year over year.
Lawmakers have perennially updated Nebraksa’s major state funding distribution model since it was adopted in the 1990s, and advocates and lawmakers have agreed major changes are needed but haven’t yet agreed in what form.
Public funding help for Nebraska’s private schools could not increase without future approval. The lead lawmaker supporting such a program, State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn, has repeatedly said the state is in good financial health and can afford to extend a small fraction of “hope” to families. Linehan is in her final year in the Legislature because of term limits.
‘Nebraskans: Don’t be Wisconsin’
Martin has joined the Cornhusker State teacher’s union and visited the state to oppose its newest laws on at least four occasions. He warned, “Nebraskans: Don’t be Wisconsin.”
“Nebraska: Don’t go down that road,” Martin said. “You’re a state that has warded it off and you’ve done a really good job. Continue to go down the route that you’ve gone for 100-plus years with your public schools.”
Martin attended a campaign fundraiser July 11 with Jenni Benson, the former president of the Nebraska teacher’s union and current president of the Support Our Schools Nebraska campaign, which has opposed the current ballot measure.
At that event, Benson pointed to a quote displayed in her office that reads, “There is a special place in Hell for those who remain neutral in a crisis.” Benson told those at the July event that the current battle over school funding is such a crisis.
Nebraska became the 49th state nationwide to embrace “school choice” legislation in 2023, with LB 753, the Opportunity Scholarships Act. In 2024, facing a public referendum on the fall ballot for that program, lawmakers replaced it with LB 1402, leading to a second referendum.
The National Education Association and Nebraska State Education Association have been the major donors behind repeal efforts on both pieces of legislation.
Martin said that’s because of concerns over accountability, transparency and concern over potentially funding two school systems eventually.
Asked why he’s sure Nebraska would follow the same path, Martin said providing a small initial investment — currently $10 million in Nebraska — is similar to what happened in states like Arizona, Wisconsin or Florida, but the funding eventually ballooned.
“I don’t see anything different,” Martin said.
Kentucky and Colorado also have school choice questions on their November ballot.
Nebraska school choice laws
Linehan is the sponsor behind LB 753 and LB 1402, as well as various versions that didn’t pass during her eight-year legislative tenure.
LB 753, which comes off the law books officially Oct. 31, appropriated $25 million every calendar year as a one-to-one refundable income tax credit for donations to scholarship-granting organizations, like Opportunity Scholarships of Nebraska.
That organization is the largest, receiving 965 tax credit contributions since Jan. 1, when the law began, totaling about $9.53 million. The average credit was $9,800, and credits ranged from $50 to $100,000, according to a spokesperson.
In total the organization distributed $2.6 million in scholarships for this academic year to 1,515 students. The average scholarship was $1,723.
The LB 1402 program ended LB 753 and instead was designed to divert funds through the Nebraska Treasurer’s Office, at a smaller level of $10 million that wouldn’t grow, as the funding under LB 753 would have.
Linehan has noted that $10 million represents 0.02% of the total cost for Nebraska’s public schools, which receive more than $5 billion. Linehan has said it is a civil rights issue that families are locked into attending public schools, particularly for low-income families, students of color or children with disabilities.
“I’ve been lucky all my life, real lucky. I don’t know when people have the good fortune to have a good job, to be stable, why they would not help those who are not so lucky,” Linehan told the Examiner. “I’ve never understood it. I hope I never do.”
Helping to get the first legislation over the hurdle in 2023 was American Federation for Children, a national nonprofit that advocates for charter schools, vouchers and other forms of scholarships for private K-12 schools. Linehan’s daughter is a spokesperson for the organization, which was founded by former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
Tim Royers, president of the NSEA, said the problem isn’t with the cost but with the general concept.
Accountability and transparency
Josh Brown, president of the Iowa State Education Association, said that the appropriation for Iowa school choice programs was projected to be hundreds of millions less than it has ended up costing, and that the state auditor can’t review how the funds are spent, because they go to private entities.
“There’s no looking at how the money is being spent,” Brown said of the Iowa system.
Wirtz-Olsen, in Wisconsin, said the conversation would be different if taxpayers knew how the money is spent, what private schools’ academic standards and other procedures are, and whether the state could track student achievement.
“I believe very firmly in my heart of hearts that if taxpayers across Wisconsin could see all of that in their own tax bills that that would open their eyes,” Wirtz-Olsen said.
Private schools serve about 10% of students
In the next four years, more than $1 billion will go to Iowa schools, which serve less than 10% of students, Brown said. He expects private tuition costs to grow until low-income families can’t afford the programs even with the vouchers.
“They have snuck in a program pretending like it was to help those that are most unfortunate in a way that, in the end, is going to just be a public funded tuition for those who already would have been choosing that anyway,” Brown said.
Nebraska and Wisconsin have a similar, 9:1 split of students between public and private schools.
Linehan said the choice for Nebraskans this Nov. 5 is whether the 10% of students not attending public schools are as important as the other 90%.
“I think every kid matters, and I’m pretty sure most Nebraskans do,” Linehan said.
Brown said public schools were designed as a solution to inequality and said lawmakers should invest in public schools instead of finding “ways to divide us and have the haves and have nots and put people into a situation where we’re fighting among ourselves for limited resources.”
“In the end it’s not a war or anything between public and private schools,” Brown said. “It’s really a conflict between how public money is spent on private services without equal access and without taxpayer accountability.”