The Trump administration plans to roll out a massive voucher program that will be available in every state.
We know from the statistics of every voucher program that most vouchers will be claimed by students who never attended public schools. The voucher recipients are already attending religious and private schools. Their parents are able to pay tuition, but will gladly accept a government subsidy to lower their costs. In every state with universal vouchers, most are taken by students already in nonpublic schools.
We also know that vouchers will not help the poorest kids, who are likely to be rejected by good private schools and end up losing ground in substandard schools. Vouchers have not improved education in any state that adopted them. One of the nation’s most expansive voucher programs is in Florida; that state just posted its worst NAEP score in two decades. To learn more, read Josh Cowen’s The Privateers.
Nonetheless, Laura Meckler reports in The Washington Post, the Trump administration is prepared to dole out billions of federal dollars to pay for tuition at nonpublic schools, most of them religious.
Meanwhile, the public schools, which enroll nearly 90% of all K-12 students in the U.S., would receive less funding, have larger class sizes, and less money for teachers’ salaries.
Vouchers have been tested in state referenda repeatedly and have consistently, often by huge margins.
Meckler writes:
The school voucher movement has scored victories in conservative states in a quest to send public dollars to private schools, with tax money following the child. Now backers see their best chance yet to go national.
Congressional Republicans, backed by the White House, are pushing for a new tax credit that would direct billions of dollars a year to school voucher programs — and not just in conservative states.
The program would be fueled by a powerful, never-before-tried incentive: Taxpayers who donate to voucher programs would get 100 percent of their money back when they file their taxes. That means the tax break for giving to voucher programs would dwarf tax incentives for giving to churches, hospitals, food banks and every other charity.
Taxpayers who donate to other charities might qualify for a tax deduction — meaning they would not pay taxes on the dollars they contribute. But donors to voucher programs would get a dollar-for-dollar tax credit, meaning they could subtract the full value of the donation from their bottom line tax liability.
The goal is to give more families more options for their children’s education. Too many children, supporters say, are stuck in public schools that do not serve them well but cannot afford other options. A federal program would give more children in more states the opportunity to make a different choice for their education. The tax credit, they say, would encourage and allow taxpayers who want to help to do so.
One version of the plan would cost the federal government $5 billion a year in lost revenue; another version, $10 billion. At $10,000 per student, $5 billion would be enough to pay for about 500,000 vouchers, which families could use to send their children to private schools or to pay for home schooling expenses. Under a version of the bill approved by the House Ways and Means Committee last fall and a new version introduced this year, all but the wealthiest families would be eligible to receive vouchers.
“It would be transformational,” said Jim Blew, co-founder of the Defense of Freedom Institute, which advocates for school choice programs. [Blew worked for Betsy DeVos when she was Secretary of Education.] “Although the numbers are very small in the federal context, in the context of the school choice movement, these are huge numbers.”
About 46 million American children — nearly nine in 10 — attend public schools; about 5 million are enrolled in private schools, according to federal data.
But opposition is fierce from those who say these plans drain resources from public schools, which are required by law to take all children. Public school advocates are mobilizing publicly and privately against the plan, lobbying Republicans who might oppose it based on the merits or the cost.
“We’re making sure the public understands this is the greatest threat to public education we’ve ever had at the federal level,” said Sasha Pudelski, director of advocacy for AASA, the School Superintendents Association, who helps lead a coalition of more than 60 groups opposed to the voucher plan.
Pudelski noted that unlike public schools, private schools can reject students based on their religion, test scores, disability or ability to pay tuition. The vast majority of vouchers in existing state programs go to religious schools.
“It would be the first time the federal government is choosing to subsidize a secondary private system of education that can pick and choose the students it educates over the one that welcomes all,” she said.
Voters, too, have opposed these plans. In November, ballot measures to allow vouchers in Kentucky and Colorado failed, while voters in Nebraska voted to repeal a voucher program put into place by the legislature.
But the federal plan enjoys robust support from the most powerful people in today’s Republican Party. President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to create a federal school choice program. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) have both co-sponsored versions of the voucher legislation.
There goes the separation of church and state. There goes common sense. Voucher programs don’t help students. They hurt public schools, which enroll the vast majority of students. Vouchers are a huge drain on the budget.
Why should taxpayers pay tuition for wealthy families? Why should taxpayers underwrite tuition at schools that discriminate against students for any reason they want, be it race, religion, disability status, sexual orientation, or low test scores? If public schools did that, their test scores would be sky-high, but it would betray the promise of public schools: equal educational opportunity. Not for only those we choose to admit.
Diane Ravitch's blog 