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Court Strikes Down South Carolina School Voucher Program
In many states, the challenge of creating a school voucher program is a constitutional requirement that public tax dollar are designated only for public schools. South Carolina’s legislature thought they had found a workaround; today the State Supreme Court said no.
Voucher Boondoggle: House Advances Plan to Give the Wealthy $1.20 for Every $1 They Steer to Private K-12 Schools
While there was never any question as to whether the committee’s majority supported private school vouchers, this is the first time they have gone on the record specifically endorsing the kind of profitable tax shelter embedded in many voucher programs. As we learned yesterday, most of the House Ways & Means Committee is content to facilitate new forms of wasteful tax avoidance if doing so aids the cause of funneling more public resources into private K-12 schools.
The Dark Money Defunding Rural Schools
Eleven states now have universal school voucher laws, with the harm falling especially hard on rural schools. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have at least one private school choice program. In November 2023, when Politico tweeted out its story, “GOP states are embracing vouchers. Wealthy parents are benefitting.,” Corey DeAngelis, DeVos’s privatization point man, responded, “Fantastic.”
Kentucky Voters Buried Private School Vouchers. One More Idea Must Die to Truly Reinvest in Our Public Schools
Despite the best efforts of anti-public school activists and the deep pockets of out-of-state billionaires, Kentucky voters resoundingly defeated the proposed constitutional amendment allowing public dollars to be diverted to private schools. The amendment was rejected in all 120 Kentucky counties and at the hands of a unique bipartisan coalition of rural, urban and suburban voters.
States Should Bolster, Not Undermine, Education Gains Made with ESSER Funds
Over half of states divert public dollars away from public schools to private schools through school vouchers. In 2024, 14 states enacted new, or expanded existing, school voucher programs, and Colorado and Kentucky are considering legalizing school vouchers through ballot measures. For example, Florida will spend almost $4 billion on its school voucher program this year, an amount that could easily replace Florida’s total annual ESSER loss if invested in public, rather than private, schools.
Christian Nationalists Are Opening Private Schools. Taxpayers Are Funding Them.
This politically charged approach to education likely isn’t for everyone—and because it’s a private school, it doesn’t have to be. Except for one thing: Dream City Christian Academy is one of a growing number of religious schools that are supported by public funds.
What Is In The Federal School Voucher Bill
The Educational Choice for Children Act of 2024, introduced by Representative Adrian Smith (R-NE-3), would create school vouchers on the federal level, and as with all voucher programs, the devil is in the details. What do we find when we take a look under the hood?
Protect Public Schools: An Advocacy Toolkit to Fight School Voucher Programs
School voucher programs and their many iterations (education savings accounts, tax credits, etc.) drain funds from public schools while disproportionately harming Black and Brown students from low-income backgrounds and students with disabilities. This toolkit provides the resources and information communities need to launch effective advocacy campaigns against school voucher programs in their state.
A Conversation with ELC Senior Fellow Josh Cowen, Author of The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers (October 2024):
This PFPS webinar features Dr. Josh Cowen, Education Law Center Senior Fellow and professor of education policy at Michigan State University, in conversation with Maria Bautista of the NYU Metro Center about his new book, The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold Vouchers. The book provides a deep-dive investigation into education privatization covering a range of topics, including the origins of private school vouchers and the network of billionaire conservatives who have converged around the issue. It also highlights how vouchers are failing students and exacerbating income inequality, arguing that the advancement of privatization policies is an assault on public education as a defining American institution.
Keep Public Funds in Public Schools.Oppose $20 Billion National Private School Voucher Program Proposal
The Educational Choice for Children Act (H.R. 9462 in the
118th Congress) would give away $5 billion per year to
fund private school vouchers. Vouchers divert critical
funds from public schools to subsidize/pay for students,
many who already attend private schools. Private schools
cherry pick which students they want to admit, resulting
in discrimination.
Stop Private School Vouchers —Keep Public Funds in Public Schools
Some Members of Congress want to sneak a $20 billion private school voucher program into a priority tax package aimed at cutting taxes. The Educational Choice for Children Act would create a national, federal voucher program and funnel $5 billion per year in taxpayer money to private schools and families who homeschool.
Just How Bad Is the ‘Educational Choice’ Bill in Congress that Trump Is Expected to Support?
If passed, the ECCA will fund vouchers through a tax credit system. Contributors (which the bill refers to as “any taxpayer”) will donate money to a 501(3)(c) scholarship granting organization (SGO), which in turn awards the money as vouchers to families. The families may then use the money for a variety of education-related expenses, including private school tuition. Contributors then receive a dollar-for-dollar credit on their federal tax bill of up to $5,000 or 10 percent of their gross income—whichever is greater.
PFPS Launches New Interactive Tool Examining Public and Private School Student Populations
Public Funds Public Schools has created an interactive research tool designed to inform and assist advocates in the fight against vouchers. The tool provides 2021-22 data on the numbers, geographical location (city, suburb, rural), and composition (race, income) of public and private school student populations in the states. It also shows the percentage of students attending religious schools and racially segregated schools.
Florida Private Education Vouchers Cost $4 Billion This School Year
Florida is already deeply underfunding its public schools. The state sits at the bottom of the national school funding rankings in ELC’s Making the Grade 2024 report, scoring grades of ‘F’ for funding level, for inequitable distribution of that funding, and for funding effort. As funding for private education vouchers has increased, it is consuming an ever larger portion of overall taxpayer funds directed to education, increasing from 12% of public funds spent on education in 2021-22 to 23% this year.
The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual
PFPS is excited to welcome back authors Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider to the PFPS webinar series. Ms. Berkshire and Dr. Schneider will discuss their new book, "The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual," with Jasmine Bolton, Policy Director at the Partnership for the Future of Learning.
PFPS and Allies Defend Protections for LGBTQ+ and Other Students in Schools Receiving Public Funds
Public Funds Public Schools and allies submitted an amicus curiae brief in St. Dominic Academy v. Makin urging the First Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the application of Maine’s anti discrimination requirements to all schools receiving public funds, whether public or private, religious or secular. PFPS also recently filed amicus briefs in two other cases presenting similar issues.
How Religious Schools Became a Billion-Dollar Drain on Public Education
The center had played a key role in bringing about one of the most dramatic expansions of private-school vouchers in the country, making it possible for all Ohio families—even the richest among them—to receive public money to pay for their children’s tuition. In the mid-nineteen-nineties, Ohio became the second state to offer vouchers, but in those days they were available only in Cleveland and were billed as a way for disadvantaged children to escape struggling schools. Now the benefits extend to more than a hundred and fifty thousand students across the state, costing taxpayers nearly a billion dollars, the vast majority of which goes to the Catholic and evangelical institutions that dominate the private-school landscape there.
No Vouchers! Public Funds Are For Public Schools!
Experts including Professor Josh Cowen, ELC Senior Fellow and author of The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers, and Jessica Levin, ELC Litigation Director and Director of Public Funds Public Schools, discuss the implications of Donald Trump's presidency on public schools and voucher programs.
How to Fight Vouchers in 2025: A Toolkit for Advocates
This PFPS webinar featured ELC Senior Fellow Josh Cowen, Nicole Fuller from the National Coalition for Public Education, and speakers from PFPS/ELC who shared information, resources, tools, and tips to help advocates prepare for crucial state and federal legislative fights over private school voucher programs in 2025.
Jeff Yass’s Big School Choice Gamble
They strategized over PASS, the state program that would provide vouchers to students in the lowest-performing public schools. “I needed to get Yass’s feedback,” Williams says of the program’s political viability, “because he is more in contact with Republicans than I am.