Just say NO to Private School Vouchers

There are drastic changes ahead for public education in the United States and these changes can impact our K-12 students via radical, severe cuts to public education funding. The Trump administration and the 119th Congress are working to divest the US Department of Education (ED) of responsibility for K-12 public education and to give federal funding directly to the states, which means public education quality and funding will vary widely from state to state. 

Likewise, the Educational Choice for Children Act bills (S.292 and H.R. 833 ) are also detrimental. If they pass in Congress, these bills will provide school vouchers to families by way of a tax shelter that will provide a 100% reduction in tax liability up to $5,000 for parents who pay private school tuition or homeschool their children.  

Although not yet federally mandated, 29 states and the District of Columbia currently have private school choice programs. Of those, programs that are available to all students exist in 15 states. These programs include tax-credit scholarships, education savings accounts, vouchers, and tax-credit education savings accounts.  

Virginia is one of the few states that has resisted school vouchers (for the most part), but in 2012, then-Governor McDonnell initiated a limited tax credit program for charitable donations to scholarship funds. In 2025, five private school voucher bills were defeated in Virginia’s General Assembly, however, Governor Youngkin has not given up on getting $50 million for School Vouchers in the 2026 budget, currently under consideration. 

Of course, if S292 or HR833 passes, all states will have school voucher programs, and public education in the U.S. will be profoundly changed.  

Why do we financially support public schools?

We support public schools with our taxes because education is too important to our society to leave it to chance. Public education is a cornerstone of our democracy and a thriving democracy needs citizens to be educated. In addition to helping children become productive members of our society, public education provides the knowledge and skills to understand civic responsibilities and participate in the democratic process. A healthy democracy needs citizens who are engaged, can make well-informed decisions about their government, and have critical thinking skills so they can actively participate in the democratic process.  

Public education is structured to serve everyone regardless of ethnic background, income status, physical or mental abilities, special education or accommodation needs, English language proficiency, or citizenship status. Also, public school buildings and employees tend to serve as anchors in communities. 

In contrast, private schools can refuse to admit students and do not have the accountability, transparency, and oversight requirements that public schools have. If public education funds are redirected to private school vouchers, our government will be subsidizing a system that is allowed to discriminate against students.

Private schools are also not required to have licensed teachers, nor are they overseen by school boards with open meetings, unlike public schools. As a result, private school students are more vulnerable to discrimination, severe punishment, suspension, or even expulsion. Also, they are not required to provide special education support. 

Funds from federal and state taxes have fueled mostly excellent public education in our country. Nevertheless, there is a misconception that public schools are failing and this misinformation is being used to justify the need for private school vouchers.

In one of the President’s executive orders, he shared the disinformation that “too many children do not thrive in their assigned, government-run K-12 school” which precipitated his call for a federal private school voucher program. In fact, voucher programs have resulted in lower academic achievement relative to public schools while vouchers can actually harm student achievement and result in worse test scores. 

Public education is freely available to every and all students. In contrast, vouchers seldom cover the total cost of attending a private school and vouchers can be used by students already enrolled in private school.  For these reasons, vouchers are a greater financial benefit to upper- income families compared to those families that cannot afford to pay the tuition balance.  

Rural communities depend heavily on public education and are less able to use school vouchers because those communities are so sparsely populated. Finally, private schools are not required to provide transportation, unlike public schools.  

Why is there a push for school vouchers?

The idea of private school vouchers was introduced by Milton Friedman in 1955 to allow children to attend for free the schools chosen by parents, rather than their designated neighborhood public school. Unsurprisingly, this concept coincided with the Brown v. Board of Education decision that mandated the desegregation of public schools. What followed that court decision was Massive Resistance, where many white families refused to send their children to integrated schools. Instead, numerous “segregation academies” were formed so families could send their children to all-white schools.  

It was during Massive Resistance that Virginia adopted a school voucher system to help pay the tuition for non-sectarian segregated, private schools that accepted only white students. School vouchers enabled white families to use public funds for tuition at these segregated, private schools. At the same time, funding for public schools was reduced. It wasn’t until 1965 that it was determined to be against the law to use vouchers from the state’s tuition grant program to fund schools that discriminated based on race. 

Currently, some states already have school voucher programs, and some states (including Virginia) have fought against initiating voucher programs: 20 States have tax-credit scholarships, 16 States have education savings accounts, 10 States and the District of Columbia have vouchers, and two states have tax-credit education savings accounts. 

If Congress passes S.292 and H.R. 833, all states will have school voucher programs funded with federal tax dollars that would have gone to public schools. 

Reasons to Fight School Vouchers  

Private school voucher programs could divert billions of dollars away from already underfunded public schools and lead to the unacceptable privatization of the public school system. Virginia is one of the few states that has fought hard to resist voucher programs and guards its public school funding. At the same time, Commonwealth funding has been documented as inadequate for the needs of Virginia’s children. Diversion of public school funds from federal contributions would further exacerbate the underfunding problem in Virginia and would be especially devastating to rural communities. 

In practice, states may not realize the full cost of voucher programs until they are underway. For example, Arizona has what was considered a model voucher program, but a recent “budget meltdown” occurred due to unanticipated expenses of the voucher program. Still, some states are modelling their voucher programs after Arizona’s, despite its fiscal failures.

"As voucher systems expand, they cannibalize states’ ability to pay for their public education commitments. Arizona, which passed universal vouchers in 2022, is nearing a genuine budget crisis as a result of voucher over-spending. Six of the last seven states to pass vouchers have had to slow spending on public schools relative to investments made by non-voucher states.” - Josh Cowan, Professor of Education Policy at Michigan State University

Often sold as a way to provide “school choice,” it is only the private school’s choice whether to accept or retain students. Private schools are not required to accept all students, and often will not accept students with learning or physical disabilities, English language learners, those living in poverty, those with challenging behaviors, or even those of particular ethnic backgrounds. Private school students have no guarantee that civil rights laws will be enforced, unlike public schools which must abide by civil rights laws. 

Despite continued amplification that vouchers will improve education outcomes, there is no convincing evidence that this is true. Instead, it has been shown that redirecting tax dollars to private schools can lead to even worse academic outcomes and can increase the gaps between the haves and have-nots. In other words, redirecting tax dollars to private schools has been shown to increase the achievement gap that some claim it will “fix.” The loss of essential funding to public schools may destabilize the schools that serve the vast majority of students, and it will be the most at-risk kids who are most vulnerable. 

The National Coalition for Public Education shares that studies of voucher programs show these programs are not only associated with steep declines in academic performance, but also can have an impact that is greater than natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and the COVID-19 pandemic on academic performance.

"Vouchers harm student achievement as much as natural disasters." - National Coalition for Public Education

School vouchers remain deeply unpopular with the voting public. Polls conducted by All4Ed, revealed that most voters, regardless of their age, race, gender, education level, political views, or geographic location in the United States, picked public schools over private schools. Also, more than two-thirds of voters chose to fund public schools over the availability of vouchers.

Even the majority of Republicans preferred to spend federal funds on public schools over vouchers. Surprisingly, two-thirds of voters in states that voted overwhelmingly for President Trump picked public school funding over private school vouchers.

“Public schools aren’t failing, they’re starving.” - First Focus on Children