The history of vouchers is rooted in segregation

Private schools in the South were established, expanded, and supported to preserve the Southern tradition of racial segregation in the face of the federal courts’ dismantling of “separate but equal.” White students left public schools in droves to both traditional and newly formed private schools. From 1950 to 1965, private school enrollment grew at unprecedented rates all over the nation, with the South having the largest growth.

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.

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.