School choice tax credits can help students with disabilities, like me
School choice reforms have been taking off across the country since 2020. The most recent example is in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law his school choice bill last month. However, we may now be getting school choice at the federal level, as a measure to create $5 billion in annual school choice tax credits, starting next year, just passed the House Ways and Means Committee.
The funding is private, coming from charitable contributions to Scholarship Granting Organizations. Although the tax credits have still yet to be distributed, and the actual amount of money each student will receive from this credit has yet to be fleshed out, I can say that school choice like this would have prevented a lot of trauma for me in my academic journey, because I would’ve been able to attend a special needs school without having to go through an emotionally burdensome litigation process.
From kindergarten through sixth grade, I spent most of my time in special education. I was placed there because I was very behind my general education peers in socializing and academics. In fact, while I was in eighth grade I was reported to have the reading level of a fourth grader. When my family and I requested accommodations tailored to my needs, my public school instead opted for traditional, “cookie-cutter” accommodations that turned out not to be very helpful at all. Unfortunately, by the time that was clear, I was already in middle school and unprepared for its level of general education. I ended up failing most of my classes.
Once it became apparent to my family that the accommodations my public school offered did not help me, we sued and ultimately won. The school then had to pay for me to attend a neurodiversity-affirming non-public school made for special needs students like me, since their promise that their accommodations would help me did not come to fruition.
However, my life completely changed when I got to attend a school made for students like me. It was there that I got my ambitions, learned to love learning, and saw college as a real possibility for me. Now I am an undergraduate political science student at UC Berkeley and president and founder of Mentoring Autistic Minds, a California-based nonprofit that aims for a neurodiversity-affirming country through mentoring and education. It was at this school that I blossomed. I blossomed because this school was tailored for autistic students like me.
My sister, who also has autism and Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder, was also only able to leave the school that wasn’t working for her through litigation. It shouldn’t have to be this way. My family and I shouldn’t have had to put up such a large fight just to get the accommodations we needed.
If I had access to school choice, I could have avoided the experience altogether, along with the emotionally burdensome process of litigation, and attended a neurodiversity-affirming school the moment my family and I knew things weren’t going right.
This is why I believe in school choice, especially for students with disabilities. Other people should have access to the same opportunity. However, not everyone thinks that school choice is beneficial for special education and special needs students. Some well-meaning activists argue that school choice, on the contrary, actually hurts students with disabilities.
One of their main arguments is that school choice ends up reducing funding for schools, because some students leave, and then there are fewer resources made available for the remaining students. However, we have evidence that school choice actually increases competition (and thus quality) among schools, helping even students who continue to attend public schools.
Another concern I’ve heard from fellow disability advocates about school choice is that, because federal protections provided in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Section 504 don’t apply to private education providers, special education students in particular will be left behind. As NPR pointed out, “among the measure’s strongest critics are advocates for students with disabilities, who argue it would not protect them from being poorly served or even turned away by private schools.” Is that how families of special education students feel, though? A 2003 analysis of Florida’s McKay Scholarship Program, an education voucher made for special education students, showed that the overwhelming majority of participants were satisfied with the program. Additionally, a Morning Consult survey from 2022 showed that the overwhelming majority of special education parents spoken with supported school choice.
There are multiple arguments for and against school choice. There are also instances where vouchers haven’t worked. I simply want to argue in favor of letting special needs students like me be able to have a chance to try out schools specifically tailored for needs like mine.
What’s the harm of letting me have a choice?
David Rivera is president and founder of Mentoring Autistic Minds, a California-based nonprofit that aims for a neurodiversity-affirming country through mentoring and education.
