Trump's Voucher Scheme
America's privatizer-in-chief
Donald Trump’s second act in the White House has so far been a series of disasters - all of which could have lasting impacts on the democracy idea in America.
Dismantling institutions and taking a sledgehammer to the government seems the order of the day. No matter if programs inside are good or bad or help people or strengthen communities.
Public schools are no exception. Yes, there have been big changes at the Department of Education - with more being touted. But also, Team Trump wants a national school voucher scheme.
Josh Cowen, in his newsletter for Public Funds for Public Schools, highlighted the voucher threat:
Finally, we’re all still waiting to see what happens with the so-called Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA)—aka the tax shelter for the wealthy that’s also a federal voucher scheme intended to ram vouchers into every state—even those that don’t want it. Those of us with our ear to the ground have heard conflicting things: maybe it will make it into the federal reconciliation process (where it would need only a simple GOP majority to pass) or maybe it’ll come up for a vote later in the year. One thing we know is that Betsy DeVos’s group is continuing to make this a top priority, so it’s something to keep monitoring closely.
It combines two the GOP’s favorite things: tax credits for rich people and private schools.
The ECCA is a tax credit scholarship program. Here’s how it would work.
Rich person gives money to a nonprofit that provides private school tuition to K-12 kids. Rich person gets a nice tax credit.
Nonprofits get some cash. Some of it, ostensibly, goes to provide vouchers to families for use at private schools.
As Peter Greene notes:
But this bill, probably aimed to slip through the reconciliation process, would quickly force taxpayer-funded school vouchers on every state in the union, whether they want them or not.
There you have it: Vouchers, vouchers everywhere - and not a public school left.