FARGO — An education policy professor says North Dakota is “ready to burst” when it comes to adopting a private “school choice” program.

Patrick Wolf of the University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform spoke about “School Choice in North Dakota” at North Dakota State University on Friday, November 1.

He was a guest of the Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth as part of a fall speaker series.

Wolf said 34 states have implemented some form of private school choice, including Montana, South Dakota and Minnesota.

“There’s a state there, North Dakota, that’s a bit of a donut hole,” Wolf told the audience, referring to a map on a projected screen.

But he predicts the state won’t remain an “outlier” for long.

Anna Paige / The Forum

The North Dakota House has introduced a bill in 2023 to offset private school tuition,

but Governor Doug Burgum vetoed it and an attempt to override the veto failed.

House Bill 1532 would have set aside $10 million from the state’s general fund for an education reimbursement program.

Wolf said Burgum’s failure to pass a school choice program during his eight years as governor of a red state hurt the governor’s efforts to outrun presidential candidate Donald Trump for office. vice-president.

“It was a strike against him,” Wolf said of the governor.

In Burgum’s veto message at the time, he said that while his administration supported school choice, the bill was not the comprehensive solution needed and was insufficient, particularly for rural areas far from any existing non-public schools.

By opposing the bill at the time,

Nick Archuleta, president of North Dakota United,

said it’s about using taxpayer dollars to allow private schools to choose which students they want to educate.

He also said rural schools would end up “subsidizing private education for urban families.”

Kirsten Baesler, who is seeking a fourth term as superintendent of public instruction, said North Dakota should not fund school choice programs at the expense of public schools.

“This cannot be a conversation between one or the other”

Baesler said in an interview last month with the North Dakota Monitor.

School choice programs come in four forms, Wolf said: school vouchers, tax credit scholarships, individual tax credits and education savings accounts, or ESAs.

South Dakota and Montana both have tax credit scholarships, with the latter also offering ESAs, while Minnesota has an individual tax credit for parents who fund their own tuition. their child’s private studies, according to Wolf.

Tax credit scholarships were developed, he explained, because some states have constitutional prohibitions against the government directly supporting religious organizations.

An ESA system, similar to a health savings account, would be a better fit for North Dakota, he said, because of its flexibility.

“They can accommodate rural areas that wouldn’t have a critical mass of students to attend a traditional private school, but they can also accommodate existing private schools,” he added.

Wolf argued for school choice by arguing that while government has a responsibility to support the education of every child, it therefore does not have to control the provision of education.

He compared North Dakota to West Virginia, also a rural state with a handful of mid-sized cities, where an ESA program was adopted three years ago.

Based on similarities between states, he said it is estimated that North Dakota would have about 1,100 participants in an ESA program in the first year, about 2,700 in the second year and just under 5 000 in the third year.

There would be net costs to the state the first two years, but by the third year, Wolf said the state would recoup $1.11 in savings for every dollar spent.

He also maintains that his and his colleagues’ research shows that private school choice programs can increase high school graduation rates, leading to lifelong income and health benefits for these individuals and these communities as a whole.

He also said studies indicate that public school students’ test scores increase when those public schools experience pressure to launch a school choice program.

Two private school executives attended Wolf’s presentation.

“He has plenty of evidence to dispel some of the fears, misconceptions and stereotypes about why we can’t choose school,” said Mike Hagstrom, president of JPII Catholic Schools.

Bob Otterson, president of Oak Grove Lutheran School, echoed that statement.

“What I think we heard today from Dr. Wolf is that there is real research. It’s not just about a feeling about what people have,” he said.