Written by Don Byrd
The National Coalition for Public Education sent a letter to leaders of the Senate Education Committee urging them to oppose efforts to insert school voucher funding into the Education bill. The Baptist Joint Committee is one of 56 organizations that signed the letter, which laid out the many reasons to oppose school vouchers. It notes “voucher programs have proven ineffective, lack accountability to taxpayers, and deprive students of rights provided to public school students.”
The Coalition spells out to the Committee the religious freedom problem:
Voucher programs primarily fund private religious schools. To both protect the religious freedom of taxpayers and the autonomy of religious schools, many of our coalition members object to taxpayer money being used to fund religious education.
Along with the many substantive reasons like those the Coalition explains, I would add this: the American people don’t like them. Voters consistently reject voucher programs when given the chance at the ballot box. So, why do lawmakers continually return to the idea?
