More Tools from ELC to Convince Governors to Just Say No to Federal Vouchers!
Education Law Center has spent close to a decade working to ensure public funding supports public education through our anti-voucher campaign, Public Funds Public Schools. The campaign uses litigation, policy advocacy, research, and communications to challenge the diversion of public resources to private education. And we have notched several notable wins along the way.
With that background, it was imperative for us to turn our attention to the new federal tax credit voucher program included in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act. And now, in addition to producing and disseminating a Frequently Asked Questions document and a two-page Explainer about the federal program, we’ve published op-eds in important outlets to make sure readers are aware of the harms inherent in the federal voucher scheme:
- ELC Executive Director Robert Kim’s piece “States Should Reject Federal School Voucher Scheme" was published in The Progressive.
- ELC Board of Trustees Chair Kevin Welner and Colorado State Board of Education member Kathy Gebhardt penned “Opinion: Take Note, Gov. Polis: Coloradans Have Repeatedly Said No to School Vouchers” in the Colorado Sun.
In both op-eds, governors are urged to opt out of this program whose clear purpose is to divert public money to private education expenses, despite dangling the possibility of some funding for public education. Because as Professor Welner writes, “A program sold as adaptable will then become a Trump-branded straitjacket and a devil’s bargain.”
The other purpose of these op-eds and the additional resources ELC has put together is to provide information, talking points, and support for public education advocates in states so they can press their governors not to opt in to the federal voucher scheme. For help with that, please feel free to use anything we’ve provided here, and if we can be of assistance, please contact us at [email protected].Together we can keep public resources in public schools.
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Updated FAQ and Advocacy Tool Debunking Federal Voucher Scheme Now Available!