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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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
DIY Activism: Share our new zine on Illinois' harmful voucher program
Illinois Families for Public Schools DIY Activism: Share our new zine on Illinois' harmful voucher program
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.
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 $250 million state dollars have now been siphoned off to private schools in our state.
This program was intended to last for five years and to sunset after the 2022-2023 school year. It was extended for one additional school year already. Voucher supporters and school privatizers want it to be made permanent and expand!
#SCHOOLVOUCHER SCAM$
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.
Scotland County public schools deserve better than voucher program
A looming education bill in Raleigh will harm public schools in the Scotland County area if it becomes law. Senate Bill 406/House Bill 823 would triple the size of the state’s Opportunity Scholarship private school voucher program by opening the program to wealthy families whose kids are already enrolled in private schools and increasing the maximum voucher size. The bill would negatively impact public schools across the state but will have a particularly negative impact on rural schools.
PFPS Webinar Series
Public Funds Public Schools lists their series of webinars on school voucher programs with descriptions and links.
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.
Facts About Vouchers
The National Coalition for Public Education has compiled a series of fact sheets on school voucher programs.
Lawmakers Refuse to Adopt School Vouchers, For Now
One of the primary concerns during the Texas legislative session was Governor Greg Abbott’s pressure to pass private school vouchers by establishing education savings accounts. Proponents argued that vouchers would empower parents while ignoring all that parents and their children would lose. IDRA and other organizations and individuals expressed concerns about the negative impact vouchers would have on families, public schools and communities (IDRA, 2023; Latham Sikes, April 11, 2023a). Vouchers would divert crucial funds away from already underfunded public schools, exacerbating funding inequities and leaving some students without essential resources (PFPS, 2023).