In Pence, Trump finds school choice advocate

As governor, Mike Pence strongly advocated for education reforms, overseeing a vast expansion of the state’s private school voucher program and a boost in funding for charter schools.

Now as the incoming vice president, Pence has the chance to promote those same policies on the national stage.

And his boss is on board.

Consider this: Donald Trump has hinged his education plans on a $20 billion federal voucher program that would allow low-income families to send their children to the public or private school of their choosing. Details on how the program would work and how it would be funded are  few. But Trump has pledged to be “the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice.”

With Pence as his No. 2 and Betsy DeVos, a Michigan philanthropist and staunch voucher advocate, set to head the U.S. Department of Education, school choice policies that have come to define Indiana's educational landscape could gain an unprecedented prominence on the federal level.

While the administration of President Barack Obama has supported the expansion of charter schools nationwide, educators expect the Trump-Pence administration to provide a bully pulpit for national discussions on school choice.

They point to Pence’s record in which he pushed for laws to ease the ability for families to use taxpayer funds to pay for private schools and for charter schools to receive a $500 per student grant on top of their regular funding.

Robert Enlow, president of pro-voucher group EdChoice, said he expects the national dialogue to center on “education reform in ways we haven’t talked about it in a while.”

He said he hoped Indiana’s voucher program, the largest in the nation, would inform the federal voucher plan that Trump floated during his campaign. Republicans and school choice advocates see vouchers as a way to get kids out of failing schools while giving families the flexibility to choose the school that's the best fit for them. But some Democrats and public school advocates argue the voucher program drains funding from traditional school districts and uses taxpayer money to fund religious education.

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Since its inception in 2011, Indiana's voucher program has garnered mixed reviews while gaining popularity and political support. Enrollment has skyrocketed to 33,000 recipients from 4,000, with the state spending $131.5 million in the 2015-16 school year. It gives the most help to low-income students and provides a boost to middle-class families.

Voucher advocates point to Indiana’s improving scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress for fourth- and eighth-graders as proof that school choice has raised the quality of education in the state. Supporters say most of the schools that voucher students attend are rated A, B or C in Indiana's accountability grades.

But public education advocates who oppose vouchers say there’s no proof that students do better after switching to private schools. Research on Indiana’s program is limited, making it difficult to determine whether students fare better or worse academically after switching to private schools through vouchers.

An ongoing study by University of Notre Dame researchers is attempting to answer that question. Preliminary data show voucher students who transferred to private schools performed worse in math. A separate study by the bipartisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability concluded, "Indiana’s voucher program may actually diminish student achievement in the state over time because it diverts public taxpayer dollars away from the state’s public education systems."

Only a small percentage of students use vouchers to leave a failing school in favor of a higher-performing private school, Indiana State Teachers AssociationPresident Teresa Meredith pointed out. Most students take vouchers to pursue a religious education. During the previous school year, a state report found less than 1 percent of recipients claimed they would attend an “F” school to become eligible for the program.

Public education advocates fret that vouchers blur the lines between church and state. Private schools do not have to keep public records of how they spend money, said Vic Smith, a board member of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education. They can choose whom they admit and can turn away students. They can discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students on the basis of religion.

School choice proponents say options foster competition, which improves all schools. But Smith said competition distracts from academics, by forcing schools to prioritize marketing themselves, fragmenting communities over schools and putting too much focus on high-stakes standardized testing, to the detriment of non-tested subjects such as the arts and vocational education.

Trump’s voucher proposal, Smith said, would be “the biggest federal intrusion in U.S. education policy history.”

But Enlow sees benefits in Indiana’s program that he hopes will be mirrored at the federal level.

While some states limit the types of students or the number of students who qualify for vouchers, Indiana — under Pence’s governorship — has expanded its program to create more ways to qualify for vouchers. There's no longer a cap on how many students can receive a voucher. In 2015, under Pence’s direction, the state also eased restrictions, so students could qualify for more public dollars for pricier private school tuition.

“It’s a parent-centric and teacher-centric view, as opposed to a system-centric view,” Enlow said of Indiana’s program.

The Indiana House's education policy leader, Rep. Robert Behning, said Indiana's voucher program has provided families a lot of options.

"I've always argued it's a social justice issue that kids in the urban core tend to have the least advantages when it comes to education," said Behning, an Indianapolis Republican. Trump's voucher proposal could "really make a difference" if it's done right, he said.

Jeanne Allen, founder of The Center for Education Reform, called Trump and Pence "unabashed school choice supporters."

“Opportunity scholarships or vouchers, like those in D.C. and also in Indiana, will be more likely to thrive and grow with people in office who are willing to buck the status quo,” Allen said.

Aside from vouchers, Justin Ohlemiller, executive director of reform-minded Stand for Children Indiana, wants Pence to focus on expanding nationwide an Indiana law that allows for the creation of “innovation network schools.” The framework now used by Indianapolis Public Schools allows the school district to partner with a charter operator to run a school. It’s seen as a strategy to increase achievement at low-performing schools.

“That is a great framework to really have (it) be potentially part of any sort of federal vision on education,” Ohlemiller said. “That legislation does a really effective job of giving traditional public school districts more tools to support innovative ideas and partner with charter schools doing good work in communities.”

But those schools have faltered academically. One of the first innovation schools, School 103, saw just 4.6 percent of students pass both the English and math sections of the 2015-16 ISTEP. That's down from 9.6 percent the previous year.

Other than that, Ohlemiller said questions remain on what Trump’s education agenda is going to look like. The federal education agency under Obama pushed innovation and to “open up opportunities for charters and traditional public schools to work together,” Ohlemiller said.

Another looming education question centers on school policies for transgender students. Obama’s Education Department took a controversial stance by interpreting Title IX, a gender equality statute, as requiring schools to treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity. That included access to locker rooms and restrooms.

The federal guidance has been challenged in court, and the Supreme Court is expected to address the issue.

While Trump has said transgender people should be able to use facilities according to gender identity, he has also alluded to favoring state and local control over such policies. Pence has opposed rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people throughout his time in Congress and as Indiana governor. This year, he cautioned Indiana lawmakers to prioritize religious freedom over civil rights protections for LGBT people.

LGBT advocates worry that a Republican administration, paired with a Republican-controlled Congress, would likely move away from transgender-friendly policies.

EdChoice’s Enlow said he expects an emphasis on minimizing federal regulations on states. Trump’s voucher plan calls for federal funds to flow through the states, for example, and Enlow said the plan needs to preserve states’ ability to implement programs as they see fit.

“It’s not going to come with so many federal strings,” he said.

USA TODAY reporter Greg Toppo contributed to this story.

Call IndyStar reporter Stephanie Wang at (317) 444-6184. Follow her on Twitter: @stephaniewang.

Call IndyStar reporter Chelsea Schneider at (317) 444-6077. Follow her on Twitter: @IndyStarChelsea.