Official: School voucher plan too expensive

Gov.-elect Brian Sandoval’s campaign promise to establish a school voucher program faces criticism from state Superintendent of Instruction Keith Rheault, who believes it would be too costly.

At a state Board of Education meeting on Friday, Rheault estimated that vouchers would cost the state more than $100 million if 20,000 students signed up. With vouchers, a public school student could transfer to a private school and the private school will receive state money that otherwise would have gone to public schools.

Rheault’s estimate is roughly based on each student receiving a voucher for $5,200 in state per-pupil funding.

About 20,000 students currently attend private schools in Nevada.

To organize and administer a voucher program would cost the state another $1 million, Rheault estimates.

"Giving out 10,000 vouchers to students just doesn’t happen," he said. "You need somebody for fiscal control. Somebody has got to do the follow-up and make sure a student actually showed up at the private school."

The voucher proposal comes at the same time Nevada public schools face a loss of state funding of 10 percent or more. Sandoval, a Republican, has pledged not to raise taxes and to cut spending to balance the state’s 2011-13 budget. It’s now estimated that state tax revenues in the next two-year budget period will be $5.33 billion, or about $1 billion less than current spending.

In his campaign plan for education reform, Sandoval said, "Parents should be able to seek out the best possible education for their kids. Whether it is across the street, across town, public or private — our kids deserve every opportunity to succeed."

Because Sandoval has not detailed how his voucher plan would work, Rheault said he was basing his criticism on past proposals from the Legislature and outgoing GOP Gov. Jim Gibbons.

As the new administration prepares to take over the governor’s office, Rheault said he appreciates that Sandoval’s staff is open to dialogue. Sandoval’s staff is supportive of the Department of Education’s plan to introduce a new model next year for measuring student growth in academic achievement.

Sandoval "is interested in how we report progress," said Sandoval adviser Dale Erquiaga at Friday’s meeting. "We’re glad the Department of Education is far down that road."

Under the new model, "every school will be identified as having high growth or low growth," Rheault said.

Schools that have low-performing students could rank high on the chart if the school is able to demonstrate progress over time, based on student scores on state exams.

Conversely, schools that start out with high-performing students might not fare so well on the growth model if the school cannot document significant progress in student achievement.

"Those schools will be exposed," Rheault said.

Contact reporter James Haug at jhaug @reviewjournal.com or 702-374-7917.