By Leland D. Murphy
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee in the U.S. Senate, recently released an important report titled “By the Wealthy, for the Wealthy: The Coordinated Attacks on Public Education in the United States.” It highlights how billionaires are working to dismantle the U.S. education system through funneling substantial funds into private school voucher schemes. A theme throughout is how voucher programs benefit wealthy families and even corporations.
For example, the committee analyzed the demographics of students and parents taking advantage of these programs, revealing a concerning trend. The committee found that an overwhelming majority of students using a voucher – between 65% and 95% – never attended public schools. This suggests that these programs primarily serve students whose families can already afford to send them to private school rather than public school students. It also means that these vouchers divert desperately needed funds away from public schools to private voucher programs, ultimately harming the educational outcomes of the 90% of our students who attend public schools.
In addition, one type of voucher in particular – tuition tax credit vouchers – benefits corporations and the wealthiest donors while harming the general American public. This type of voucher uses tax incentives to funnel money to private and religious schools: individuals and corporations get a reduction of their taxes, often dollar-for-dollar, for money they “donate” towards private school tuition. (Donations to charities like homeless shelters and veterans’ support organizations, in contrast, receive a federal tax deduction that could be worth between 10-40 cents on each dollar donated.) The report shows that corporations have used these voucher programs to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. These schemes effectively drain public schools and other services of crucial funds and subsidize wealthy, private institutions.
The report highlights that it is unsustainable to pay for two education systems. Vouchers force harmful tradeoffs that benefit those who already have the most power and wealth in society by subsidizing expensive private education. Public schools benefit all of us, including students from wealthier backgrounds.
In the report, the HELP Committee also exposed the involvement of far-right billionaires in funding voucher initiatives nationwide. Notable examples include the Bradley Foundation, DeVos Family Foundation, and Koch Foundation, identified as major contributors to the voucher movement. Some of these entities are connected to what Americans United has exposed as the “Shadow Network” – a coalition of far-right interests aiming to impose Christian Nationalism on all of us and undermine our diverse democracy.
This alignment of interests is alarming. These groups are actively seeking to drain public schools of their resources to subsidize private, including religious, schools. It is imperative that we resist voucher schemes at all levels of government to protect and preserve our public education system.
