School choice policies evolved from supporting Black students to subsidizing middle-class families
Originally developed as a tool to help Black children attend better schools, school voucher programs now serve a different purpose. (Drazen via Getty Images)
School voucher programs that allow families to use public funds to pay tuition to attend private schools have become increasingly popular.
Thirteen states and the District of Columbia currently operate voucher programs.
In addition, 15 states have universal private school choice programs that offer vouchers, education savings accounts and tax credit scholarships. Indiana's new state budget funds universal vouchers in the second year.
More states are considering school choice and voucher programs as the Trump administration advocates for widespread adoption.
School vouchers have a long history in the U.S.
The first vouchers were offered in the 1800s to help children in sparsely populated towns in rural Vermont and Maine attend classes in public and private schools in nearby districts.
After the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, in which justices ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional, segregationists used vouchers to avoid school integration.
More recently, school voucher programs have been pitched as a tool to provide children from low-income families with quality education options.
As a scholar who specializes in education policy, law and politics, I can share how current policies have strayed from efforts to support low-income Black children.
Research from education history scholars shows that more recent support for school choice was not anchored in an agenda to privatize public schools but rooted in a mission to support Black students.
Over time, as school voucher policies grew in popularity, they evolved into subsidies for middle-class families to send their children to private and parochial schools.
School choice policies have also expanded to include education savings account programs and vouchers funded by tax credit donations.
Vouchers can redirect money from public schools, many of which are serving Black students.
States looking to add or expand school choice and voucher programs have adopted language from civil rights activists pushing for equal access to quality education for all children. For example, they contend that school choice is a civil right all families and students should have as U.S. citizens. But school voucher programs can exclude Black students and harm public schools serving Black students in a host of ways, research shows.
This impact of voucher programs disproportionately affects schools in predominantly Black communities with lower tax bases to fund public schools.
Since the Brown v. Board ruling, school voucher programs have been linked to racial segregation. These programs were at times used to circumvent integration efforts: They allowed white families to transfer their children out of diverse public schools into private schools.
In fact, school voucher programs tend to exacerbate both racial and economic segregation, a trend that continues today.
For example, private schools that receive voucher funding are not always required to adopt the same antidiscrimination policies as public schools.
School voucher programs can also negatively impact the quality of public schools serving Black students.
As some of the best and brightest students leave to attend private or parochial ones, public schools in communities serving Black students often face declining enrollments and reduced resources.
In cities such as Macon, Georgia, families say that majority Black schools lack resources because so many families use the state's voucher-style program to attend mostly white private schools.
Moreover, the cost of attending a private or parochial school can be so expensive that even with a school voucher, Black families still struggle to afford the cost of sending children to these schools.
Research from the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C., shows that voucher programs in Ohio result in majority Black school systems such as the Cleveland Metropolitan School District losing millions in education funding.
This impact of voucher programs disproportionately affects schools in predominantly Black communities across the U.S. with lower tax bases to fund public schools.
Another example is the Marion County School District, a South Carolina system where about 77% of students are Black.
Marion County is in the heart of the region of the state known as the 'Corridor of Shame,' known for its inadequate funding and its levels of poor student achievement. The 17 counties along the corridor are predominantly minority communities, with high poverty rates and poor public school funding because of the area's low tax base due to a lack of industry.
On average, South Carolina school districts spent an estimated US$18,842 per student during the 2024-25 school year.
In Marion County, per-student funding was $16,463 during the 2024-2025 school year.
By comparison, in Charleston County, the most affluent in the state, per-student funding was more than $26,000.
Rather than focus on school choice and voucher programs that take money away from public schools serving Black students, I argue that policymakers should address systemic inequities in education to ensure that all students have access to a quality education.
Establishing restrictions on the use of funds and requiring preferences for low-income Black students could help direct school voucher policies back toward their intent.
It would also be beneficial to expand and enforce civil rights laws to prevent discrimination against Black students.
These measures would help ensure all students, regardless of background, have access to quality education.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Former S.F. Mayor London Breed reveals her post-City Hall career plans
Former San Francisco Mayor London Breed has been quiet about her professional plans since she left office in January, but that's starting to change. The Aspen Policy Academy announced Wednesday that Breed and G.T. Bynum, the Republican former mayor of Tulsa, are its first bipartisan 'civic innovation' advisers-in-residence. The academy, a Bay Area-based operation of the Washington, D.C. think tank Aspen Institute, said Breed and Bynum will spend six months mentoring fellows on policy projects, representing the academy at events and working on projects about policy subjects of their choosing. It's not a full-time job, though it does come with a stipend, and Breed is believed to be exploring other unspecified career opportunities as well. Still, the academy's announcement provided the first public indication of how San Francisco's former mayor is spending some of her time following 12 years as an elected official in the city. 'This program is about more than learning how government works — it's about inspiring a new era of civic leadership,' Breed said in a statement released by the academy. Aspen Institute CEO Dan Porterfield said in a statement that mayors 'bring distinctive insights to the work of policymaking given their proximity to the people and communities they serve.' Breed and Bynum 'will be an invaluable resource to future policy leaders,' Porterfield said. The Aspen Institute has connections to Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization tied to former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He was one of Breed's top benefactors when she ran for reelection last year. Breed also appointed a former Bloomberg staffer to the board of supervisors during her final weeks in office. Breed was elected mayor in 2018 and served in the role for more than six years, until she was unseated in November by Daniel Lurie. A native of the city who grew up in public housing in the Western Addition, she was the first Black woman mayor of San Francisco. Her tenure at City Hall was marked by a series of overlapping crises, including the pandemic, which hurt the city's economy and upended the agenda on which she campaigned. Breed won praise for her early response to COVID-19, but her tenure quickly became dominated by public outrage over rampant drug use on city streets and record overdose deaths driven by the rise of fentanyl. As downtown offices emptied out, major retailers fled Union Square and viral videos of brazen property crimes spread online. San Francisco's reputation took a nosedive, further complicating Breed's fight for another term. Her reelection campaign last year centered around a hopeful message, pointing to a drop in reported crime and other developments as evidence that she was leading San Francisco out of its pandemic doldrums. But Lurie, a political outsider who'd never held elected office before, ultimately defeated her by 10 points
3 hours ago
Rhode Island lawmakers pass bill to ban sales of assault weapons
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Rhode Island's Democratic-controlled state House on Friday approved legislation that would ban the sale and manufacturing of many semiautomatic rifles commonly referred to as assault weapons. The proposal now heads to the desk of Democratic Gov. Dan McKee, who has said he supports assault weapons bans. If the bill is signed into law, Rhode Island will join 10 states that have some sort of prohibition on high-powered firearms that were once banned nationwide and are now largely the weapon of choice among those responsible for most of the country's devastating mass shootings. Gun control advocates have been pushing for an assault weapons ban in Rhode Island for more than a decade. However, despite being a Democratic stronghold, lawmakers throughout the country's smallest state have long quibbled over the necessity and legality of such proposals. The bill only applies to the sale and manufacturing of assault weapons and not possession. Only Washington state has a similar law. Residents looking to purchase an assault weapon from nearby New Hampshire or elsewhere will also be blocked. Federal law prohibits people from traveling to a different state to purchase a gun and returning it to a state where that particular of weapon is banned. Nine states and the District of Columbia have bans on the possession of assault weapons, covering major cities like New York and Los Angeles. Hawaii bans assault pistols. Democratic Rep. Rebecca Kislak described the bill during floor debates Friday as an incremental move that brings Rhode Island in line with neighboring states. 'I am gravely disappointed we are not doing more, and we should do more," she said. "And given the opportunity to do this or nothing, I am voting to do something.' Critics of Rhode Island's proposed law argued that assault weapons bans do little to curb mass shootings and only punish people with such rifles. 'This bill doesn't go after criminals, it just puts the burden on law-abiding citizens,' said Republican Sen. Thomas Paolino. Republican Rep. Michael Chippendale, House minority leader, predicted that if the legislation were to become law, the U.S. Supreme Court would eventually deem it unconstitutional. 'We are throwing away money on this," he said. It wasn't just Republicans who opposed the legislation. David Hogg — a gun control advocate who survived the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida — and the Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence described the proposed ban as the 'weakest assault weapons ban in the country.' 'I know that Rhode Islanders deserve a strong bill that not only bans the sale, but also the possession of assault weapons. It is this combination that equals public safety,' Hogg said in a statement. Elisabeth Ryan, policy counsel at Everytown for Gun Safety, rejected claims that the proposed law is weak. 'The weakest law is what Rhode Island has now, no ban on assault weapons,' Ryan said. 'This would create a real, enforceable ban on the sale and manufacture of assault weapons, just like the law already working in Washington state, getting them off the shelves of Rhode Island gun stores once and for all.' Nationally, assault weapons bans have been challenged in court by gun rights groups that argue the bans violate the Second Amendment. AR-15-style firearms are among the best-selling rifles in the country. The conservative-majority Supreme Court may soon take up the issue. The justices declined to hear a challenge to Maryland's assault weapons ban in early June, but three conservative justices — Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas — publicly noted their disagreement. A fourth, Brett Kavanaugh, indicated he was skeptical that the bans are constitutional and predicted the court would hear a case 'in the next term or two.'
New York Post
6 hours ago
- New York Post
Mayor Eric Adams flip-flops on controversial Medicare push days after legal win
Mayor Eric Adams on Friday said he was abandoning his years-long effort to move retired city workers onto higher-cost healthcare plans — despite scoring a major legal win in the controversial case earlier this week. The mayor, who is running as an independent in the November general election, had been the only major candidate in the race backing Medicare Advantage, a private plan that uses Medicare subsidies rather than the traditional program offered to retired city workers. But Adams flip-flopped on Friday, announcing in a statement that his sudden change of heart stemmed from town halls and public events with retirees who said they were worried about the change. Mayor Eric Adams said he is now flip-flopping his initial stance and will abandon his year-long effort to move retired city workers to higher-cost healthcare plans. Getty Images 'We have informed union leadership that we are pursuing other avenues for improving health care for city workers that will provide even better outcomes, and we look forward to continuing to work with our partners on the best path forward,' he said. The mayor's office did not clarify what other options they were considering at this time. Every morning, the NY POSTcast offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post's signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here! It came just two days after New York's Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled in favor of the Adams administration, finding the city could legally shift retirees to Medicare Advantage plans after years of fighting by advocacy groups. Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa jumped on the mayor's about-face, slamming it as a nakedly political move. 'Now, just days after the Court of Appeals ruled in his favor, and just as his reelection prospects dim, Eric Adams suddenly finds the backbone to stop his assault on our retirees,' Sliwa said in a statement. Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa criticized Adams for changing his stance on the healthcare proposal. He claimed that Adams would break his promise and go back to supporting the health-care plan if he was re-elected. An Adams campaign representative did not respond to a request for comment. Medicare Advantage was originally introduced in 2021 by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, who argued that the program would save the city over $600 million a year.
