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

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.

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Opposing Private School Vouchers:A Toolkit for Legislators and Advocates
Toolkits and Guides National Coalition for Public Education Toolkits and Guides National Coalition for Public Education

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.

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Let the Illinois “Invest in Kids” Private School Voucher Law Sunset
Studies Reports and Data Public Funds Public Schools Studies Reports and Data Public Funds 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.

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Voucher Talking Points</a>
Accountability North Carolina Justice Center Accountability North Carolina Justice Center

Voucher Talking Points

This talking points document from the North Carolina Justice Center includes general talking points on the impact of school voucher programs and specific points in response to 2023 voucher legislation.

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Vouchers for Private Virtual Education Are Misspent Public Money</a>
Academic Performance Public Funds Public Schools Academic Performance Public Funds Public Schools

Vouchers for Private Virtual Education Are Misspent Public Money

Research shows that virtual learning is simply not an effective, long-term substitute for brick and mortar schools.1 Because private virtual schools are not held accountable in the same way as public schools, they usually don’t report data on funding, student outcomes, and other important measures, and are largely absent from studies of virtual education. But based on what is known about virtual schools, including virtual charter schools, as well as extensive research on the harmful effects of voucher programs, it’s clear that voucher-supported, private virtual schools are a misuse of scarce public resources.

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Letter re SB 795 Private School Vouchers</a>
Discrimination Education Law Center Pennsylvania Discrimination Education Law Center Pennsylvania

Letter re SB 795 Private School Vouchers

The Education Law Center-PA wrote this letter urging the senate to reject SB 795. Funding private schools with public dollars, as this bill proposes, will not move the Commonwealth a single dollar closer to its constitutional mandate, which is to support and maintain a contemporary, effective public education system accessible to every child in the Commonwealth, regardless of their school district’s local wealth. In fact, it does the opposite, redirecting funds away from public schools and making compliance with the court ruling harder to achieve.

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Overturning Brown: The Segregationist Legacy of the Modern School Choice Movement
History of Vouchers Is Rooted in Segregation Public Funds Public Schools History of Vouchers Is Rooted in Segregation Public Funds Public Schools

Overturning Brown: The Segregationist Legacy of the Modern School Choice Movement

This PFPS webinar features Steve Suitts in a discussion about his must-read new book, “Overturning Brown: The Segregationist Legacy of the Modern School Choice Movement,” with Dr. Sybil Jordan Hampton, to whom Suitts dedicates the book in honor of her lifelong efforts to advance equality for school children.

In Overturning Brown, Suitts examines the parallels between southern segregationist practices and the modern school choice movement, exposing the fallacy behind the latter’s so-called civil rights agenda. The book also highlights the risks facing America’s underserved youth as expanding school voucher programs divert public funds to predominantly white, often wealthy private schools.

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Preferencing Educational Choice: The Constitutional Limits

Preferencing Educational Choice: The Constitutional Limits

Rapidly expanding charter and voucher programs are establishing a new education paradigm in which access to traditional public schools is no longer guaranteed. In some areas, charter and voucher programs are on a trajectory to phase out traditional public schools altogether. This Article argues that this trend and its effects violate the constitutional right to public education embedded in all fifty state constitutions.

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