Leigh Dingerson writes at In The Public Interest that the long assault on public education seems to be reaching a tipping point. Yes, there are still public schools. Yes, they still educate a vast majority of kids. But also, yes, the underlying assumption that public education is a public good that should be preserved is slipping away. In fact, many on the Right are arguing against it.
The idea that government has an inherent interest in providing a free, public education for every child used to be sacrosanct, except among a small set of radical reformers like Milton Friedman. But a 40-year campaign for “school choice” has quietly gathered steam. Proponents of privatization are now openly acknowledging that their sights are set on eliminating public schools. They want to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education (founded to ensure the civil rights of children in schools) and offer no-strings-attached public dollars to private and religious schools. And now, a lawsuit filed in Nebraska just this month argues that the U.S. system of public schools violates the First Amendment and asks the state to declare public schools unconstitutional.
Dingerson warns that Donald Trump’s federal school voucher scheme is particularly dangerous.
The implications of almost-universal private school vouchers are enormous. The federal tax credit voucher program signals a massive shift towards a privatized, market-based system with few if any guardrails to serve our most vulnerable students, ensure equity, rein in discrimination, or address educational quality.
And, well, vouchers don’t improve academic outcomes - in fact, they make them worse:
Vouchers do NOT improve student academic outcomes. Children who leave public schools to attend a private school with a tuition subsidy (voucher) do not improve their academic outcomes. In some states the learning loss for public school kids who take a voucher is more substantial than learning loss documented from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, or from the Covid epidemic.
Data out of Tennessee support this claim:
The Tennessean notes that only 17% of kids receiving vouchers scored proficient on the state’s standardized math test and 24% reached proficiency in English.
I mean, that sounds bad - but, how does it compare to public school results?
Public school students scored 43% in math proficiency and 40% in English.
Not just a little better, a LOT better.
Vouchers also end up taking more and more of state education budgets - $300 million in this year’s Tennessee budget, for example. Up from $145 million last year. States like Indiana and Arizona have also seen voucher costs explode.
Taxpayers are paying more and getting less.
And, the attack is relentless - a chipping away at a fundamental American institution.
Will there be a system of free public schools in America’s future?