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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.
Voucher Talking Points
Pastors for Texas Children developed this one-pager with anti-voucher arguments.
Conversation Points With Clergy
This toolkit includes talking points and fact sheets from anti-voucher arguments to the imperative of faith/school leader partnership.
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.
Illinois’ Invest in Kids Act voucher program and the separation of church and state
Illinois’ Invest in Kids Act voucher program, diverts tax dollars to private schools via a tax credit scholarship scheme. Ninety-five percent of schools receiving voucher money are religious schools. Many of those lobbying most strongly for continuation of the program, which was intended to sunset after five years, are from the religious schools that are recipients of the voucher funds.
SOS Arizona Network Blog
This web page from Save Our Schools Arizona is includes blogs on Arizona’s voucher program.
PFPS Interview with Richland County Public Education Partners
Robert Lominack, Executive Director of Richland County Public Education Partners (RCPEP), and Debbie Billings, a parent and public school advocate in South Carolina affiliated with RCPEP, spoke with Nicole Ciullo, Research & Policy Associate at Education Law Center. Founded in 2018, RCPEP works to improve Richland County public schools by supporting and developing innovative initiatives that assist teachers, students, and families. The interview, which was conducted earlier in the legislative session, has been edited for length and clarity.
The PFPS Interview: Reverend Johnson of Pastors for Texas Children
Reverend Charles Foster Johnson, co-pastor of Bread, in Fort Worth, Texas; Founder and Executive Director of Pastors for Texas Children, a faith-based advocacy group that works to promote and advance public schools in Texas; and head of the national Pastors for Children organization spoke to Jessica Levin, Public Funds Public Schools Director. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The PFPS Interview: Molly Sweeney, Owen Goslin, and Arlyssa Heard from Michigan’s 482 Forward
PFPS continues to showcase the work of public education advocates across the country in the latest installment of the PFPS interview series. These interviews offer advice and insights for others fighting private school voucher proposals. Given the large number of voucher bills already introduced in the 2023 legislative session, sharing knowledge and inspiration from successful state and local organizations opposing these policies is more crucial than ever. This interview highlights the efforts of dedicated public school advocates in Betsy DeVos’s home state of Michigan, which remains voucher free despite powerful pro-privatization forces once again focusing their energies on establishing a voucher program in the Great Lakes State last year.
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.
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.
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.
Let the Illinois “Invest in Kids” Private School Voucher Law Sunset
Illinois’ “Invest in Kids” tax credit voucher program is set to sunset after the 2023-2024 school year. This unpopular pilot program should lapse as intended in the law. Illinois should reject any attempt to extend the program or make it permanent, as well as any proposal to establish additional voucher programs. Instead, the state must invest in its underfunded public schools, which, unlike private schools, welcome and serve all students.
Facts About Vouchers
The National Coalition for Public Education has compiled a series of fact sheets on school voucher programs.
Studies and Reports
The National Coalition for Public Education has compiled studies and reports on school voucher programs.
End the ‘Invest in Kids’ Act voucher program
Illinois Families for Public Schools developed a fact sheet on why policy makers should end the Invest in Kids Act voucher program.
What To Know About the Invest In Kids Act
Illinois Families for Public Schools developed a fact sheet in English and Spanish with frequently asked questions about the Invest in Kids Act voucher program.
Public Funds Public Schools Research Page
This webpage from Public Funds Public Schools is a useful tool for policy makers to filter through research on school voucher programs.
Anti-School Privatization Model Legislation
This model legislation was developed by the Southern Education Foundation in response to the increase in school privatization and voucher programs.
Bill Analysis: SB 233
The Georgia Senate recently passed a bill that would funnel public state dollars to private schools. Senate Bill 233 would create a promise scholarship account (PSA), another name for a voucher, for families to pay for private school tuition or qualified education expenses with funds from the state government.[1] The bill would set aside $6,000 per academic year into a “consumer-directed account.” A family’s acceptance of these funds would act as a refusal of federal protections for students with disabilities and state laws for an adequate public education, such as background checks for teachers.