Community Choice Education

Program Guidelines

The key elements of Community Choice Education are as follows:

By voter referendum, each community can recognize the right of its citizens and employers to determine how their individual educational tax contributions are spent.
The taxpayer can choose to have their taxes go to various non-government community education systems for scholarship funds or for tuition money including non profit, for profit, parochial or home schooling. Taxpayers may also set up Education Savings Accounts for their dependent minors.
The taxpayer can decide how their individual tax money is to be spent within the public schools system or elect not to participate in the Community Choice Education program and have the taxes distributed by the respective school board.
Primary residence renters will be provided a full opportunity to participate in Community Choice Education with rights equivalent to home owners.
Community Choice Education will be phased in over a period of 5 years. During this time taxes cannot be increased faster than the rate of inflation.
Community school systems retain the right to set tuition rates that are either higher or lower per pupil spending levels in public schools.
All schools can be recipients of Community Choice Education contributions as long as the school does not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, color or national origin. Also recipient schools cannot advocate unlawful behavior or teach hatred of any person or group on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, or gender.
All community school systems’ autonomy shall be preserved. No regulation encompassing curriculum, testing, teacher hiring, student acceptance or expulsion shall be regulated.
Unlawful barriers to the right of entry to new community education systems shall be disallowed. Freedom of educational innovation will be preserved and it is essential to the success of Community Choice Education.

A Closer Look

I. By voter referendum, each community can recognize the right of its citizens and employers to determine how their individual educational tax contributions are spent.

Upon passage, with each scheduled tax bill, Community Choice Education tax credits may be used to defray the costs of the tax bill up to 100% of the educational taxes (see initial phase-in schedule below, section V) for each individual taxpayer. CCE tax credits cannot exceed 100% of the total itemized education taxes. Additional local government taxes such as fire, police, and health services are unaffected by this legislation and no CCE tax credit is available.

Each community choice education organization that is registered with the local government organization can issue a standard proof of payment for tuition or a receipt for a scholarship donation. For home schooled children, all educational related expenses must be fully documented to the local government authority for Community Choice Education tax credit redemption. Proof of a contribution to an Education Savings Account must be fully documented to be eligible for the CCE tax credit.

II. The taxpayer can choose to have their taxes go to various non-government community education systems for scholarship funds or for tuition money. School systems eligible for Community Choice Education include non profit, for profit, parochial or home schooling. Taxpayers may also set up Education Savings Accounts for their dependent minors.

Community Choice Education respects the freedom of each person to choose the education system of their own choosing. Currently, without Community Choice Education, the politically controlled public education system forces every single taxpayer to support it monetarily under penalty of law. This mandatory monopoly has disastrous consequences for the state of education.

As in any market with equal opportunity competitors, the more choices the consumers have the better the product is forced to be. If a producer of education doesn’t respond to the wants and needs of the consumers then it will be left in the dust by its competitors that are meeting consumers’ needs. Without the taxpayers ability to choose how to spend their money, public education will never be forced to make the changes necessary to respond to the demands for better education.

III. The taxpayer can decide how their individual tax money is to be spent within the public schools system or elect not to participate in the Community Choice Education program and have the taxes distributed by the respective school board.

In addition to having the freedom to choose educational alternatives to public schooling, the general public will have the opportunity to see their values directly represented in the public schools.

Over the last decade there have been periods when school boards have been forced to make the hard decisions in how to spend limited funds, and certain programs and curriculum have been cut or eliminated. School boards have been asked to try and determine what is most important to themselves, the students and the community in determining how to make difficult decisions.

In difficult financial times school board members must answer a lot of very important questions. They must decide what type of curriculum the school system will have. How much math, grammar, writing, reading, science, and history will the public schools teach? In what manner will they teach those core subjects? They must decide what type of other classes to offer. Will they offer classes in the various technologies such as automotives, computers and engineering?

Central planners cannot calculate what every person in a society wants, educators cannot know what the public would choose if they had the freedom to choose. Only when the public has the freedom to choose what type of education system meets their needs and values, will we have an education system that is responsive to our needs and values.

Each member of the public influence will not be overbearing, and will not infringe on the equal rights of others. The individual taxpayer will only be able to influence in a dollar amount that is equal to their tax credit and not one cent more.

IV. Primary residence renters will be provided full opportunity to participate in Community Choice Education with tax credit rights equivalent to home owners.

A primary tenant of Community Choice Education is that all residents of a community are empowered to use their education taxes in the manner in which they see fit. Renters are the second most common type of primary residence occupiers. Except for instances of charity and family members renting from other family renters, renters in effect pay the property taxes for the landowner. As a result, the renter will be eligible to participate in Community Choice Education as if they were the home owner. Renter’s and primary residence home owners receive equal Community Choice Education tax credits if their assessed values of their properties are the same.

A homeowner exemption for property taxes is commonplace throughout much of the United States. The effect of this special tax credit is that residences that are occupied by renters often have higher property taxes than similar residence which are occupied by the owners. The difference in tax rates between the homeowners’ exemption and the non-homeowners’ exemption is the “landlord tax” that is levied on the property owner.

The property owner can take the Community Choice Education tax credit for the education portion of the “landlord tax”.

V. Community Choice Education will be phased in over a period of 5 years. During this time taxes cannot be increased faster than the rate of inflation of the community.

Schedule for phasing in Community Choice Education Tax Credits

Year	Percentage	Tax Credit/$1,000 in educational taxes.

From passage to 1-year	16.67%	$166.67
1-2 Years	33.33%	$333.33
2-3 Years	50%	$500.00
3-4 Years	66.67%	$666.67
4-5 Years	83.33%	$833.33
5 Years and Beyond	100%	$1000

VI. Community school systems retain the right to set tuition rates that are either higher or lower per pupil spending levels in public schools.

VII. All schools can be recipients of Community Choice Education contributions as long as the school does not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, color or national origin. Also recipient schools cannot advocate unlawful behavior or teach hatred of any person or group on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, or gender.

VIII. All community school systems’ autonomy shall be preserved. No regulation encompassing curriculum, testing, teacher hiring, student acceptance or expulsion shall be regulated by government.

It is likely that if Community Choice Education legislation is passed, a diverse, independent, and productive education system will arise. But this will only occur if education systems have the freedom to educate in the manner that they find most successful and meet the needs of its students. Excessive regulation and loss of autonomy has been a concern in charter, and private schools accepting vouchers or money from different levels of government. Any time schools accept government money it is commonplace that controls and regulations are placed on the recipient organization such as curriculum, admission, spending, and disciplinary regulation. The inherent risk of private schools accepting government money for education is that they have to accept the regulation that is created by the political process.

Community Choice Education circumvents this problem by taking out the middleman and directly connecting the community with education. When each individual taxpayer is free to choose how they want their education dollar spent, the mandatory monopoly of political education is destroyed. Only then will it be common for diverse forms of schooling to arise within the community. Diversity in the form of various curriculum, testing, teacher hiring and pay scales, and disciplinary procedures will arise.

Community Choice Education allows the community to form various types of schools that meet the changing needs of the family and the students. Today’s students have a diverse set of needs when it comes to education. A stagnant political monopoly on education is not compatible with the freedom to diversify the education marketplace.

IX. Unlawful barriers to the right of entry to new community education systems shall be disallowed. Freedom to educational innovation will be preserved and is essential to the success of Community Choice Education.

To learn from our mistakes in education and improve on our educational systems producers of educational services must be allowed to innovate and try new teaching models by starting up new schools to serve the communities needs. Just as important is that schools are free to embark on new successes is the freedom to fail economically. Currently, the public school system is set up so that it cannot fail…economically. There is no recourse for the taxpayer to discourage failure or to take their money out of an education system that fails to meet the needs of the community or the needs of their students. No freedom to reward successful education systems and no freedom to just say no to failing schools. Every taxpayer is forced to support political education whether it is successful, failing, corrupt or immoral.

If public schools and Community Choice Education schools systems are allowed to innovate and compete with each other it will probably make public education more responsive to the public’s needs. Only when their mandatory monopoly is broken up will they be forced to prove to the public that they are serving their best interest. No unlawful barriers to new education organization should be allowed. By allowing new education institutions to operate we will be able to see which types of education are successful and which ones are failures. From here we can move forward toward a community in which our children are better able to meet the challenges that they will face on the road of life.