Long ago, back in the 1990s, the idea of vouchers was proposed as a brand new idea. Its advocates said that vouchers would “save poor kids trapped in failing public schools.” They presented themselves as champions of poor and needy kids and predicted that vouchers would change the lives of these children for the better. Eminent figures proclaimed that school choice was “the civil rights issue” of our time.
Of course, as many writers have explained, vouchers were not a brand new idea. They were popular among segregationists after the 1954 Brown decision. Several Southern states passed voucher laws in that era that were eventually knocked down by federal courts as a ploy to maintain all-white schools.
Trump’s first Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos –never considered a leader of civil rights–championed vouchers. So does Trump’s current Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.
But guess who’s getting vouchers? Not the poor kids. Not the neediest kids. Mostly the kids who were already enrolled in religious and private schools.
The story is the same in every state but accentuated in states where every student can claim a voucher, regardless of family income, as in Florida and Arizona.
Now the numbers are available in Arkansas: 88% of students who use vouchers never attended public schools.
Benjamin Hardy of The Arkansas Times reports:
On Oct. 3, the Arkansas Department of Education released its annual report on school vouchers (or as the state calls them, “Educational Freedom Accounts”). The voucher program, which was created by Gov. Sarah Sanders’ Arkansas LEARNS Act in 2023, gives public money to private school and homeschool families to pay the cost of tuition, fees, supplies and other expenses.
Among the takeaways of the new report: Just one of every eight voucher participants in Year 2 of the program was enrolled in a public school the year before. (Year 2 was the 2024-25 school year; we’re currently in Year 3.)
This matters because Sanders and other school choice supporters often frame vouchers as a lifeline for poor families to escape failing public schools. Opponents of voucher programs say the money tends to mostly go to existing private school and homeschool families.
Private school families as a whole tend to be higher income. And because the Arkansas program is open to everyone, regardless of how wealthy they are, the voucher program puts money in the pockets of many households that could already afford private school.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Universal vouchers tend to socialize some of the costs that affluent private school parents already pay for, and they allow public school budgets to subsidize the education costs of well-to-do families. As a result, they provide little additional academic benefit for students, but they can decimate public school budgets. They are a political scheme to try to undermine and destabilize public schools. Vouchers enable a politically motivated heist of public funds under the guise of “school choice.” The right supports vouchers, not so much for their benefit, but for the harm they cause to the public schools that serve all students.
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you have to hand it to the right wing. Back in the day, a pint of whiskey would buy a vote. That was back when only men voted. Now you have to buy votes with education money. We have come a long way.
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Here’s the dilemma: the top ten percent of income earners are responsible for 50% of US economic consumption. This, after considering children and benefactors of income, represents about 33 million people and according to Goggle represents about 70% of GDP. This is the size of an average European Country and would be among the top ten economies world wide. The vast majority of elected officials come from this population in every state, locality, and nationally. Corporate America makes most business decisions based on their service of the 10%. Vouchers are now a tool that further cements the income well being that has less and less contact with the bottom 90%. Everything from housing to entertainment to schooling, private or otherwise, are somewhat affordable for the ten percent where out of reach for everyone else. The. only benefit of the poor and most of the middle class to those with money and power is tax and service revenue that is now used as subsidy to reduce taxes and build income for the wealthy. Vouchers and charter schools are now part of the dam that keeps that money from trickling into the pockets of mainstream America. Too many now in power don’t even pretend to care about the poor or working class anymore.
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And, in Missouri…the Missouri Independent online newspaper reports that “of the 2,329 scholarships (VOUCHERS) awarded in August, only 59 went to students in nonreligious schools.” That is 98% of funding went to religious schools.
Missouri began its Missouri Scholars Program in 2021 to provide scholarships for students to attend private and parochial schools. The shell game is simple. A limited number of foundations are established to receive tax deductible donations. Parents apply to the foundations for scholarships to be used at private and parochial schools.
Contributions have been low so last year the Missouri Legislature under pressure from new Governor Kehoe added $50 million to the state budget to pay for scholarships. No shell game – the money goes from taxpayers to the state coffers to private and parochial schools. Several lawsuits prevail.
To qualify for a Missouri Scholars scholarship, the family income must be less than 300% of the threshold for a free and reduced-price lunch. For the 2024-2025 school year, an eligible family of four can have a maximum annual income of up to $173,160 and receive a scholarship.
And, of the 2,329 scholarships awarded in August, only 59 (2%) went to students in nonreligious schools.”
Further quoting the article:
“Christian Fellowship School in Columbia, which received scholarships for 63 MOScholars students in August, requires “at least one parent of enrolled students professes faith in Christ and agrees with the admission policies and the philosophy and doctrinal statements of the school,” according to its handbook.”
https://missouriindependent.com/2025/10/13/nearly-all-state-funding-for-missouri-school-vouchers-used-for-religious-schools/
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