This bill amends the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results (SOAR) Act by modifying school accreditation requirements, increasing funding for student support, revising testing and evaluation standards, and permanently authorizing an appropriation of $75,000,000 annually.
John Moolenaar
Representative
MI-2
The SOAR Permanent Authorization Act amends the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act, modifying accreditation requirements for participating schools and increasing funding for student support services. It refines standardized testing requirements and evaluation standards, focusing on academic progress and educational attainment. The act also increases the authorized appropriation to $75,000,000 per fiscal year, making the authorization permanent.
DC School Voucher Program Gets Permanent Funding Boost, Raises Questions on Oversight
The "SOAR Permanent Authorization Act" makes some significant changes to the existing Scholarships for Opportunity and Results (SOAR) Act, which provides vouchers for students in Washington D.C. to attend private schools. This new bill does three main things: pumps up the funding, tweaks the rules for schools and evaluations, and makes the whole program permanent.
Cash Infusion and "Student Academic Assistance"
The bill boosts the total annual funding for the program from $60 million to $75 million, starting in fiscal year 2024, and it locks in that funding level permanently. It also carves out a bigger slice of the pie for "Student Academic Assistance," increasing the allocation from $2 million to $2.2 million. That extra cash is supposed to prioritize tutoring services for kids coming from the lowest-performing DC public schools. For example, think of a student struggling in math at a low-performing school. This provision could mean they get access to dedicated tutoring, paid for by the program, to help them catch up.
Shifting Standards: Accreditation and Evaluations
Here's where things get a little more complicated. The bill expands the types of accreditation a private school can have to participate in the program. Now, schools accredited by bodies recognized by the Student and Visitor Exchange English Language Program (basically, the folks who handle international student visas) can also get in on the action. Previously, it was limited to accrediting bodies with jurisdiction in DC. This could open the door to more schools participating, but also raises questions about whether standards might be diluted.
The bill also changes how the program's success is measured. Instead of annual evaluations, the program will now be evaluated "regularly." The bill doesn't define "regularly," which is a bit of a yellow flag. It also adjusts the comparison group used to see if scholarship students are doing better. Now, evaluators can include students with "similar backgrounds" in the comparison group. While that might seem logical, it could also make it easier to skew the results. For example, if you only compare scholarship students to public school students who also have extra tutoring or support, it might make the scholarship program look better than it really is.
The bill also changes the metrics of what a successful education looks like. These include high school graduation, college enrollment, persistence, graduation rates, and school safety.
The Big Picture
This bill essentially cements the DC voucher program for the long haul and gives it a significant funding increase. It also tinkers with some of the rules around school participation and program evaluation. While increased funding for tutoring and more school choices could be a win for some DC families, the changes to evaluation frequency and comparison groups raise concerns about transparency and accountability. The permanent funding aspect also means less flexibility in future budgets, which could impact other education initiatives down the line. The practical upshot? More money for vouchers, potentially more school choices, but also some real questions about how we'll know if the program is actually working as intended (SEC. 2).