Federal Private School Voucher Program Aims to Privatize & Dismantle Public Education
This week, Congress will hear the long-awaited federal voucher program called “Qualified Elementary and Secondary Education Scholarships” — formerly known as “ECCA” — in the US House Ways & Means Committee. The federal voucher program is designed as a tax credit voucher, which will predominantly benefit students already attending (and already affording) private schools, much like Arizona’s voucher program. The voucher program would siphon $5 billion a year in taxpayer dollars to private schools, which the Economic Policy Institute predicts would equate to a $3.1 billion yearly loss for public schools.
What are “Qualified Elementary And Secondary Education Scholarships” — and Why are They Vouchers?
This week, the federal voucher bill (deceptively titled “Qualified Elementary and Secondary Education Scholarships”) will be heard in the US House Ways & Means Committee. According to the Advancement Project, the proposal would “create a nationwide private school voucher program in the form of a 100% tax break for the wealthy. Contrary to what its name implies, the federal voucher proposal — or any private school voucher program — does not provide ‘choice’ for working- or middle-class families.” Instead, the vouchers would give handouts to those who can already afford private school tuition and fund private schools that pick, choose, and exclude children. The national voucher program would further decimate our already underfunded public schools.
Federal Vouchers At a Glance
- Would divert $5 billion a year (or more!) to 1 million private school vouchers across the country
- Would provide a tax kickback to the rich
- Would drain $3 billion+ annually from public schools across America
- Includes zero financial or academic accountability for private schools and no transparency for taxpayer dollars
In Arizona, we know the playbook. Any scheme that siphons tax dollars from public schools and diverts them to private schools is another voucher grift. The federal voucher scheme would provide dollar-for-dollar tax credits to well-off individuals who donate to private school voucher processing firms (like School Tuition Organizations or STOs in Arizona). Federal vouchers would divert up to $5 billion a year in taxpayer dollars from federal budgets (and therefore from public school programs). The Economic Policy Institute projects that, in the first year alone, declines in public school enrollment due to vouchers could lead to a loss of $3.1 billion nationwide in public education funding if the voucher program is funded at $5 billion.
What are the Impacts of a Federal Voucher Program?
Taxpayer-funded discrimination. Vouchers don’t provide students with “school choice” when the schools are the ones that do the choosing. The federal voucher program would ban any oversight for private schools accepting vouchers, including for-profit and religious schools. Many private schools use policies that exclude students with disabilities, students with different religious beliefs, students of color, LGBTQ+ students, and more. Plus, when families take a voucher, they waive their federal rights, including civil rights and disability accommodations.
The rich get richer. Vouchers allow wealthy families to receive subsidized tuition while avoiding taxes. Most vouchers go to students already in private schools, siphoning away public funds intended to support the neighborhood public schools that serve the vast majority of middle- and low-income families. Vouchers rarely cover the full cost of private schools, and schools often raise tuition following the expansion of voucher programs, increasing their profits and further pricing families out.
No academic accountability. The federal voucher proposal contains no academic accountability for private schools, even though much of the research into vouchers has shown that they limit or harm learning — especially when students attend schools with lax academic standards. The program does not allow for requirements to assess students against grade-level standards, leaving private schools unaccountable for providing a high-quality education and leaving the public in the dark about student outcomes.
Fraud, waste, and abuse. Like Arizona’s vouchers, federal vouchers would allow waste and abuse of public funds. There are few guardrails on how the funds could be spent, making it ripe for exploitation. As the National Coalition for Public Education states, “In states with similar programs, parents have used the funds to purchase pizza ovens, espresso machines, big screen TVs, foosball tables, paddleboards, golf equipment, Amazon gift cards, and tickets to Disney World and SeaWorld.”
Do American Voters Want Vouchers?
In All4Ed’s OpinionatED 2024 election exit poll, 68% of voters preferred increasing federal funding for public schools over private school vouchers, including majorities of Republicans (58%) and Trump voters (55%). The state-by-state push for vouchers has been heavily funded by ultra-conservative special interests such as the Betsy DeVos-backed American Federation for Children, Koch Foundation, Heritage Foundation, and many more. In every state where vouchers have been put to a public vote, they have lost.
Creating a national voucher program would force vouchers into the many states that have rejected voucher programs, including Colorado, Nebraska, and Kentucky, where voters rejected vouchers overwhelmingly in 2024. Creating a massive, centralized federal voucher program should be anathema to those who want to shrink the government and “return education to the states” (even though states are already solely responsible for managing, assessing, and setting curriculum for public schools).
The Real Plan? Privatization of Public Education
Read our Blog on the “Privatization Playbook”
Public education is the bedrock of our communities and the cornerstone of our democracy. Trump and the billionaires pushing to privatize our public schools know this. We’ve seen this playbook before: block grants voucherize funding, allowing politicians to slash public education funding while diverting federal funds to private schools with no accountability. Federal vouchers will defund public education and leave students and educators in struggling schools even worse off, depriving students — especially those in underfunded rural and low-income communities — of the support they need to succeed. Put simply, it’s a grift that’s bad for states and bad for our democracy.