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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.
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.
Vouchers Forum 4.25.23
Illinois Families for Public Schools, the Illinois Education Association, the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the League of Women Voters of Illinois held a virtual forum on Tuesday April 25, 2023, "What You Need to Know about Invest in Kids: Illinois’ Tax Credit Voucher Program."
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.
Voucher Expansion in the Midwest
The push to dismantle public education via voucher schemes that start small and then metastasize to drain public coffers isn’t just a battle happening in Illinois. It’s nationwide, and it’s accelerating.
Voucher Web page
This web page from Illinois Families for Public Schools includes blog posts covering school voucher programs in Illinois.
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!
Vouchers and Other Diversions of Public Funds to Private Schools
Vouchers are state-funded certificates that are used to pay tuition to private schools. Mississippians have been so opposed to using taxpayer dollars to fund private schools that our constitution bans these voucher payments. Savvy folks who have long sought to privatize our public schools now are attempting to circumvent the constitution – and the will of the people – by using tax credits and education savings accounts to funnel state tax dollars to private schools.
The most recent research on the academic impact of private school vouchers finds that voucher students experience significant losses in achievement. Prior research showed that gains in achievement were about the same for low income students receiving vouchers as they are for comparable public school students.
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.
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.
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.
Vouchers in NC Slides
These slides from the North Carolina Justice Center show the fiscal impact of North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship voucher program.
Determining the Fiscal Impact of School Voucher, Tax Credit, and Education Savings Account Programs
Public school voucher, tax credit scholarship programs, and education savings accounts (ESAs) are becoming increasingly popular school choice options. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures 13 states and the District of Columbia have school voucher programs as of January 2014, 16 states have scholarship tax credit programs, and 5 states have an education savings account program. As of April 22, 2016, legislation to create new voucher, tax credit, or ESA programs have been introduced in several states. Given the saturation of existing voucher and voucher-like programs, and continued appetite for new voucher or voucher-like programs, it is important to understand whether such programs are, or are likely to, improve or worsen state budgets. *Please note that this is a draft template for organizations to use to develop their own fiscal impact analysis.
The Fiscal Consequences of Private School Vouchers
The use of publicly funded vouchers to support enrollment in private schools has a long history, but only over the past dozen years have private school vouchers gained significant traction in the United States. In some states over this time period, the growth in voucher programs has been dramatic.
The Cost of Universal Vouchers: Three Factors to Consider in Analyzing Fiscal Impacts of CS/HB 1
The Florida House PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee offered a proposed committee substitute (PCS) to HB1 that included a fiscal analysis estimating the universal private education voucher bill will cost $209.6 million in year one for Florida Empowerment Scholarship (FES) vouchers. As of February 24, the PCS is now the new version of HB1, CS/HB1. Why is the fiscal analysis price tag so much smaller than the $4 billion estimate provided by Florida Policy Institute (FPI) and Education Law Center (ELC)? Because the FPI/ELC estimates follow a set of key assumptions that were not considered in the House’s fiscal analysis.
Testimony on HB 33
As advocates for sustainable and equitable opportunities for all Ohioans regardless of their ZIP code or what they look like, we believe that protecting public schools and providing a strong education is the foundation of a functioning democracy. Some of the proposals in House Bill 33 would strengthen that foundation. Others would undermine it.
Testimony on SB 11
As advocates for sustainable and equitable opportunities for all Ohioans regardless of their zip code or what they look like, we believe that protecting public schools and providing a strong education is the foundation of a functioning democracy. Senate Bill 11 would weaken that foundation.
Impact Report 2021 – 22
The 2022-23 PPS Impact Report celebrates PPS’s continued commitment to advancing the role of families and communities in securing a high-quality public education for every child. The report also includes PPS’s statement in opposition to vouchers and work with other statewide advocacy groups against vouchers.