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.

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.

National Coalition for Public Education 12/22/23 National Coalition for Public Education 12/22/23

Opposing Private School Vouchers:A Toolkit for Legislators and Advocates

This toolkit is designed as a resource to help legislators and pro-public education advocates oppose attempts to create new or expand existing private school voucher programs.

In recent years, a network of anti-public-education politicians and lobbying groups has been emboldened in its push for private school vouchers. Billionaires like the DeVoses, including former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Kochs, and the Waltons are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on these campaigns. These funders are using their war chests to lobby for voucher bills in state legislatures, contribute to the political campaigns of pro-voucher candidates, and seed astroturf petition drives to put vouchers on the ballot.

IDRA 12/22/23 IDRA 12/22/23

5 Reasons Private School Vouchers Would Hurt Students – Infographic

IDRA 5 Reasons Private School Vouchers Would Hurt Students – Infographic

Illinois Families for Public Schools 12/22/23 Illinois Families for Public Schools 12/22/23

Eligibility Threshold Graphic

Policy Matters Ohio Eligibility Threshold Graphic

Illinois Families for Public Schools 12/22/23 Illinois Families for Public Schools 12/22/23

Who Supports Illinois’ Invest In Kids Voucher Program?

Voucher programs around the country—whether in the form of traditional vouchers, education savings accounts (ESAs),or tax credit scholarships—are supported by well funded and organized groups. These include: Americans for Prosperity (the Koch brothers’ 501c4), the American Legislative Education Council (ALEC), the American Federation for Children (Betsy DeVos’ 501c4), Moms for Liberty and the Heritage Foundation, among others.

What do these organizations have in common? They work openly to discredit public schools and push a privatization agenda, using the slogans of school choice, education freedom and parent rights. Many of them were on the ground working on the April 2023 school board elections in Illinois.

Illinois Families for Public Schools 12/22/23 Illinois Families for Public Schools 12/22/23

Voucher Web page

This web page from Illinois Families for Public Schools includes blog posts covering school voucher programs in Illinois.

Illinois Families for Public Schools 12/22/23 Illinois Families for Public Schools 12/22/23

Game Over for School Vouchers in Illinois!

In 2017, as a result of a backroom deal between then Governor Rauner, legislative leaders and the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago, the IL General Assembly created a K-12 voucher program for Illinois in the form of a tax credit scholarship scheme. Known as the Invest in Kids Act, the law allows up to $75 million in tax revenue to be diverted to private schools each year. More than $250 million state dollars have now been siphoned off to private schools in our state.

This program was intended to last for five years and to sunset after the 2022-2023 school year. It was extended for one additional school year already. Voucher supporters and school privatizers want it to be made permanent and expand!

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

#SCHOOLVOUCHER SCAM$

Our Voucher School Scam$ page, which we began in September of 2023 in response to the recent flood of irresponsible universal voucher programs includes a sorting feature that allows you to search charter scandals by state and by 12 categories. You can also search by keyword. Just use the ‘X’ to clear search terms and return to the full list of scandals.

Policy Matters Ohio 12/22/23 Policy Matters Ohio 12/22/23

Fund what works: Public dollars for public schools

Regardless of race, neighborhood, or how much money is in their parents’ bank account, every child should be able to attend an excellent school that has everything they need to learn and grow. Every dollar spent on vouchers makes this vision less achievable. Vouchers take public money and give it to private schools, with real consequences for the 90% of our kids who attend Ohio's public schools.

Save Our Schools Arizona 12/22/23 Save Our Schools Arizona 12/22/23

SOS Arizona Network Blog

This web page from Save Our Schools Arizona is includes blogs on Arizona’s voucher program.

North Carolina Justice Center 12/22/23 North Carolina Justice Center 12/22/23

New analysis shows many private schools in N.C. have more vouchers than students

This session, General Assembly leaders have placed a massive expansion of the state’s voucher program at the top of their education agenda. Legislative leaders in both the House and the Senate want to triple the program’s size by opening it to wealthy families who have already enrolled their children in private schools. But new data shows that the existing program lacks adequate oversight and is potentially riven with fraud.

Data from the two agencies charged with overseeing private schools and North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship voucher program show several cases where schools have received more vouchers than they have students. Several other private schools have received voucher payments from the state after they have ceased submitting enrollment data.

National Education Policy Center 12/22/23 National Education Policy Center 12/22/23

NEPC Review: The Ohio EdChoice Program’s Impact on School District Enrollments, Finances, and Academics

A recent report from the Thomas Fordham Institute, The Ohio EdChoice Program’s Impact on School District Enrollments, Finances, and Academics, considers three possible harms associated with Ohio’s voucher program: to public school student outcomes through com- petition, to district financial resources, and increased racial segregation. Finding that Ohio vouchers have had few such harmful impacts, the report concludes that it has effectively dismissed the primary concerns of voucher critics. Yet, while the report is broadly methodologically sound for the narrow questions it poses, the questions it asks are out-of-date with respect to current concerns raised by voucher critics, which focus on substantially decreased student achievement among students using vouchers.

Policy Matters Ohio 12/22/23 Policy Matters Ohio 12/22/23

Vouchers and Public Benefits in the Budget

These slides from Policy Matters Ohio show how the Ohio budget funds school voucher programs compared to other public benefit programs.

Policy Matters Ohio 12/22/23 Policy Matters Ohio 12/22/23

State of Ohio Schools 2023

Ohio's students deserve a world-class education, including safe and well-resourced schools that are staffed with teachers who are well trained and fairly paid. Providing that education is our shared responsibility, and we all share its benefits as well: Every family does better when the next generation is prepared for the future, every community is enhanced when its young people are engaged, curious and active participants, and every boss wants a highly qualified hiring pool.

However, the combined effects of the COVID pandemic and Ohio’s legacy of inadequate, inequitable funding have weakened the role school plays as a foundational public institution. Ohio ranks 21st in the nation for K-12 education, 46th for equitable distribution of funding, and 40th in starting teacher salaries. Ohio public schools educate 1.7 million students across racial, gender, socioeconomic and geographic lines — and every one of them deserves better.

Policy Matters Ohio 12/22/23 Policy Matters Ohio 12/22/23

Funding Ohio’s Future

School is a place where childhood happens. Ohio’s public educators teach children of all races and backgrounds basic skills, but also challenge and inspire them to follow their dreams. For many students, school is a safe place to learn, develop and grow.

Ohio currently educates 1.6 million children attending school in our cities, suburbs and small towns. For years, almost no one was happy about how the state of Ohio funded public schools. The system pitted communities against each other and private and charter schools against public schools. We were living in the K-12 version of the “Hunger Games”: The wealthier your district, the stronger your chances of success.

Save Our Schools Arizona 12/22/23 Save Our Schools Arizona 12/22/23

The Truth About ESA Vouchers

This webpage from Save Our Schools Arizona provides resources, videos, and fact sheets about Arizona’s ESA voucher program.

Public Funds Public Schools 12/22/23 Public Funds Public Schools 12/22/23

Keep Public Funds in Texas Public Schools

Private school voucher bills are being debated in the Texas Legislature again this year. An ever-increasing body of research shows that vouchers negatively affect student achievement, harm rural communities, exacerbate school segregation, promote discrimination, and undermine public school systems that welcome and serve all students. Texas public schools, which educate the vast majority of children, including the largest number of rural students in the country, remain starkly underfunded. Texas lawmakers must continue rejecting proposals for harmful voucher programs and instead use state resources to invest in public schools.