Voucher Proponents Across the Country are Winning. What Are the Stakes?

Across the country, states like Utah and Iowa are getting closer to passing school voucher legislation, while many others have already done so.

According to Education Week, “lawmakers in at least 11 states—Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia—have introduced and, in some cases, passed school choice bills”.

Generally speaking, these bills fund private schools in one of several ways, usually routing state money creatively in order to circumnavigate— often in only the most technical sense—prohibitions against direct state aid to private schools. Many of these measures are probably legal, but in states like SC they openly flout the spirit of state constitutions. “Education savings account” bills give state funding to qualifying families, who are then able to spend the money on private educational services. “Education tax credit” bills instead essentially refund taxpayers who provide “grants” to public schools. (In Sout…