As a parent of two wonderful teenagers on the autism spectrum who also navigate ADHD, the debate around school choice isn’t abstract; it’s been our lifeline. When my children started school, our local public system, for all its efforts, simply lacked the specialized resources to address their unique educational, emotional, and mental needs. We found our salvation in public charter schools—first one, and then another, when the first couldn’t deliver on its promises. These schools offered environments where my children could genuinely thrive, explore, and grow. When our now 16-year-old was heavily recruited by religious schools, each offering a full scholarship, we looked closely. But what our kids needed wasn’t Latin lessons or mandatory chapel; it was an inclusive, university-like setting that fostered their curiosity. Religious indoctrination, we decided, was not the “much-needed resource” for their journey.
This experience is why I watch the current national debate over education funding with such a critical eye. On Thursday, the Supreme Court, in a 4-4 tie, effectively blocked Oklahoma from launching the nation’s first publicly funded religious charter school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. For many, including myself, this felt like a “bullet dodged”—a crucial, if temporary, affirmation of the First Amendment’s vital separation between church and state. Public charter schools, when done right, can be invaluable public assets, but as the Oklahoma Supreme Court rightly affirmed, they must remain nonsectarian.
Yet, on the very same day the Supreme Court acted, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a sweeping piece of legislation that, among many other things, seeks to establish the first-ever federal school voucher program. This isn’t a victory for real choice; it’s a backdoor maneuver that threatens to achieve on a national scale what was just halted in Oklahoma: the widespread diversion of taxpayer dollars to private, often religious, education with potentially devastating consequences for public schools and our most vulnerable students.
The $5 billion annual federal voucher plan is cleverly structured as a tax credit, rewarding wealthy donors, who can even contribute appreciated stock and potentially profit from the arrangement, as tax expert Carl Davis of ITEP points out, for funding Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs). These SGOs would then distribute scholarships for private K-12 tuition, homeschooling, and other expenses. Proponents, like the American Federation for Children’s Tommy Schultz, hail this as a “massive day of victory” for “religious school choice.” Indeed, with nearly 80% of private school students attending religiously affiliated institutions, and Catholic schools alone making up 35% of private enrollment, it’s clear where much of this public money would flow.
The rhetoric champions “parental choice.” As a parent who desperately needed choice, I understand its appeal. Michelle Salazar in Florida, as NPR reported, found a voucher enabled her son with dyslexia and ADHD to attend a private Christian school that met his needs after a public charter allegedly failed him. Others cite safety and bullying as reasons to seek alternatives. These are valid parental concerns.
However, the proposed federal voucher program, with its broad eligibility for families earning up to 300% of their area’s median income (potentially over $300,000 a year in some places), isn’t primarily about helping the underserved find niche solutions. As numerous studies and historical data from state-level programs show, such expansive voucher systems often end up:
Discriminating and Lacking Protections: Unlike public schools, private schools are not bound by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). As Jacqueline Rodriguez of the National Center for Learning Disabilities warns, they “can absolutely say you’re not a good fit,” period. The federal bill offers only “convoluted” and likely unenforceable language about disability protections. Superintendent Curtis Finch in Phoenix calls voucher schools a “Trojan horse,” noting, “We usually get those kids back” when private schools find they can’t—or won’t—serve students with complex needs. These schools often “cherry-pick” students, leaving public schools to educate everyone else.
Subsidizing Existing Private School Families: Decades of data, as Michigan State’s Josh Cowen points out, show the “vast majority of voucher users were already in private school.” Recent data from Oklahoma’s own state voucher program revealed that fewer than 10% of applicants were public school students. This isn’t expanding choice for new populations; it’s “subsidizing their choice,” as Hilary Wething of the Economic Policy Institute stated.
Inflating Private School Tuition: When universal subsidies become available, private schools often raise their prices, as research from Princeton’s Jennifer Jennings found in Iowa, where tuitions jumped 21-25% in the first year of a voucher program.
Offering Questionable Academic Gains: Despite proponents’ claims, the evidence on academic improvement via vouchers is, at best, mixed and often negative. While some early, small, targeted programs showed modest gains, David Figlio of the University of Rochester notes, “The best studies find zero to negative impacts on test scores among participants.” Josh Cowen highlights that large-scale programs in states like Louisiana and Indiana saw students lose significant academic ground after switching to voucher schools, declines on par with pandemic learning loss.
Siphoning Funds from Public Schools: The National Education Association’s Becky Pringle warns the bill would “siphon crucial funding from public schools—serving 90 percent of students—and redirect it to private institutions with no accountability.” Even losing a few students per school, as AASA’s Sasha Pudelski notes, leads to “service disruptions, teachers and educators being laid off… fewer programs that people really care about.”
My children thrived in public charter schools that offered specialized resources and an environment for intellectual exploration—things that were publicly accountable and nonsectarian. That is the kind of choice that empowers families and strengthens communities. A massive federal voucher program, designed to funnel taxpayer dollars into private, often religious, institutions that lack accountability, can discriminate, and have a poor track record of academic improvement for many, is not a solution. It’s an ideologically driven attempt to dismantle public education from within, using the language of “choice” to mask an agenda that primarily benefits the wealthy and religious institutions.
The Supreme Court’s recent deadlock on the Oklahoma religious charter was a reprieve for the First Amendment. This federal voucher scheme is an attempt to bypass that principle on a national scale. True educational progress lies in robustly funding our public schools, ensuring they have the resources to meet the diverse needs of all children, and supporting public charter schools that offer genuine innovation and inclusivity, not in creating a taxpayer-funded exodus to private, unaccountable institutions. Our children, and our Constitution deserve better.
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