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Southern Education Foundation 9/12/24 Southern Education Foundation 9/12/24

Education Policy in the South: 2024 Legislative Spotlight

This webinar provides a high-level overview of education policy and news from the 2024 southern legislative sessions, highlighting regional trends, and reviewing SEF’s policy recommendations. Partners, lawmakers, and other stakeholders are encouraged to attend and share widely across their networks.

Paige Masten 9/12/24 Paige Masten 9/12/24

NC voucher fallout: We’re all paying for pricey private schools. It’ll get worse

Charlotte Christian School states on its website that all families applying for financial assistance for the 2024-25 school year must also apply to North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship program. The same is true of Trinity Academy in Raleigh, North Raleigh Christian Academy and many other schools in the state that accept voucher payments.

Alec MacGillis 9/12/24 Alec MacGillis 9/12/24

Conservatives Go to War — Against Each Other — Over School Vouchers

Drive an hour south of Nashville into the rolling countryside of Marshall County, Tennessee — past horse farms, mobile homes and McMansions — and you will arrive in Chapel Hill, population 1,796. It’s the birthplace of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who helped found the Ku Klux Klan. And it’s the home of Todd Warner, one of the most unlikely and important defenders of America’s besieged public schools.

Sasha Pudelski 9/12/24 Sasha Pudelski 9/12/24

For every $1 dollar...Graphic

Graphic on the funneling of money into private school voucher schemes by right-wing politicians to turn a profit.

Jessica Corbett 9/12/24 Jessica Corbett 9/12/24

This Ain't It': Pennsylvanians Slam Jay-Z's Roc Nation for School Voucher Push

Vouchers emerged in the United States as a tool to combat public As pro-public education groups plan a rally at the Pennsylvania State Capitol, educators and advocates on Friday criticized hip-hop icon Jay-Z's company Roc Nation over a campaign backing a proposed school voucher program in the commonwealth.

The campaign's "Dine & Learn" events in Philadelphia this month are intended to share information about the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success (PASS) or "Lifelife Scholarships," as supporters also call them. If approved by state legislators in the next budget, the program would put tax dollars toward "education opportunity accounts" for certain families to send their children to K-12 private schools rather than low-performing public ones.

Jim Collier 9/12/24 Jim Collier 9/12/24

Ohio’s expanded vouchers are bleeding public schools that often outperform the private schools that benefit

Vouchers emerged in the United States as a tool to combat public school integration in southern states following the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Led by Virginia, state legislatures provided public funds for white students to attend private schools — often referred to as “segregation academies.”

A new era of vouchers rebranded as “school choice” has swept the country in recent years, including Ohio, resurrecting segregation academies on wealth and racial lines.

OpenSky Policy Institute 6/3/24 OpenSky Policy Institute 6/3/24

OpenSky School Privatization Webinar 2023

In this webinar Heather DuBois Bourenane of the Wisconsin Public Education Network, Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education, and Beth Lewis from SOS Arizona talk with OpenSky about the impact of school privatization legislation in their states.

Kris Nordstrom, Phyllis Nunn 5/30/24 Kris Nordstrom, Phyllis Nunn 5/30/24

How Voucher Programs Undermine the Education Landscape in North Carolina

In 2023, North Carolina lawmakers went all-in on vouchers. Via changes incorporated in the 2023 budget bill, North Carolina became the tenth state with a universal voucher program, one in which all private school students are eligible for state-funded subsidies regardless of their family income.

Catherine Caruso 5/24/24 Catherine Caruso 5/24/24

Pennsylvania Taxpayers Are Funding Discriminatory Religious Schools

In Pennsylvania, as anywhere else in America, private schools can do pretty much whatever they want. They can refuse to accept disabled or LGBTQ applicants. They can expel students for getting pregnant and even for merely having LGBTQ friends outside of school. At the same time, they can require applicants’ families to attend church, not to mention teach students that God created the universe in six days.

Jamie Klinenberg, Jon Valant, and Nicolas Zerbino 5/24/24 Jamie Klinenberg, Jon Valant, and Nicolas Zerbino 5/24/24

Arizona’s ‘universal’ education savings account program has become a handout to the wealthy

Amid a wave of legislation that created or expanded private-school choice programs across the country, Robert Enlow, the President/CEO of EdChoice, dubbed 2023 as “the year of universal choice.” Enlow wasn’t wrong. Universal eligibility is the defining trend in recent private school choice reforms. For decades, private-school choice programs (like vouchers) provided funds only to certain families—e.g., families with low household income or a child with a disability. Recently, however, Republican lawmakers have created or expanded private-school choice programs to allow nearly all students, regardless of their individual need, access to public funding to attend private schools.

David Pepper 5/24/24 David Pepper 5/24/24

NEW Data: The Voucher Explosion

The original narrative (ie. sales pitch) was that private school vouchers were intended to assist kids in poverty and in struggling urban public schools in gaining access to “better” private schools.

And in many places, that’s how it was designed. At the very beginning.

And then…they got rid of all the criteria that served that stated goal.

Indiana Coalition for Public Education 5/1/24 Indiana Coalition for Public Education 5/1/24

Indiana's Choice: A new documentary about education in Indiana

School choice has had troubling consequences for the Indiana K-12 public school system. Indiana’s Choice brings forward the voices of teachers, students, administrators, and parents to examine how school choice enables segregation of students and discrimination against students, families, and school employees.

Families for Strong Public Schools 4/9/24 Families for Strong Public Schools 4/9/24

Public Education in Florida: A History

This graphic documents how Florida’s school voucher program has evolved from a small program for students with disabilities to a program that costs Florida taxpayers $4 billion.

Public Funds Public Schools 2/12/24 Public Funds Public Schools 2/12/24

The PFPS Interview: Darian Burns (SEF) and Mason Goodwin (GYJC) on Fighting Voucher Expansion in Georgia

The latest installment in the Public Funds Public Schools interview series highlights the work of public education advocates in Georgia, who successfully defeated private school voucher proposals during the 2023 legislative session. As these proposals continue to pass in states across the country at alarming rates, it is more crucial than ever that state and local organizations share knowledge and strategies on how best to oppose these harmful policies.

Florida Policy Institute and the Education Law Center 1/10/24 Florida Policy Institute and the Education Law Center 1/10/24

Florida’s Hidden Voucher Expansion

Florida receives an F on an A-F scale on all three funding metrics: funding level, funding distribution, and funding effort.

Since 2019, the flow of public funds to private education dramatically increased after the State Legislature enacted the Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES) program.

Pastors for Texas Children 1/8/24 Pastors for Texas Children 1/8/24

Voucher Talking Points

Pastors for Texas Children developed this one-pager with anti-voucher arguments.

IDRA 1/2/24 IDRA 1/2/24

Stop Vouchers Webpage

Texas Governor Abbott called a special legislative session in October 2023 to press legislators to establish Texas’ first-ever private school voucher program, funded by all Texas taxpayers. Instead, Texas needs to invest in public schools that serve 5.4 million students and their families. The proposed voucher program would cost $500 million. Get resources here to help Texas say no to vouchers!

Network for Public Education 12/22/23 Network for Public Education 12/22/23

Toolkit: School Privatization Explained

The Network for Public Education Toolkit: School Privatization Explained was first created in 2017 to alert the general public regarding the various forms that privatization takes and the consequences associated with each. We’ve updated the toolkit to ensure the information is up-to-date. This toolkit presents evidence of what we already know about charters, vouchers and other forms of privatization. It is organized around key questions, providing answers in clear language to the questions we at NPE are most often asked.

National Education Association 12/22/23 National Education Association 12/22/23

Telling the Real Story on School Voucher Programs Rapid Response Memo

Opponents of public schools have pushed forward with another attack on children’s freedom to learn. This time, some elected officials are threatening to rip funds from students via school voucher programs to bankroll private schools for the wealthy and hide their refusal to fully fund public schools and ensure that every child from the big cities to small towns has a neighborhood school where they can learn, grow and thrive.

Pastors for Texas Children 12/22/23 Pastors for Texas Children 12/22/23

Conversation Points With Clergy

This toolkit includes talking points and fact sheets from anti-voucher arguments to the imperative of faith/school leader partnership.

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