Voucher programs threaten the promise of public education | Opinion

Today, we face a troubling trend. The push for voucher programs that redirect public funds to private schools threatens to abandon the fundamental promise of public education. While these programs sound appealing on the surface, they risk dismantling the very foundation that makes American education a beacon of opportunity for all.

The sacred trust of public education

In my 15 years as an educator, today as school board director, I’ve witnessed the transformative power of our public schools. Walk into any of our classrooms and you’ll see what I mean.

The two students you see giggling over their favorite book in the classroom library share this safe space in unity, and you would never know which one faces the challenges of a learning disability head-on and which one is reading two years above grade level. You would never know which one is a recent immigrant and which one is a tenth-generation American. The child from a struggling family learns beside one from privilege. In the classroom, they are both welcome.

This isn’t by accident — it’s by design. It’s the promise we make to every family: Your child belongs here.

Private schools, by their very nature, can pick and choose their students. They can — and often do — turn away children with disabilities, students who don’t speak English fluently, or those whose families cannot afford additional fees beyond the voucher amount. When we divert public dollars to these selective institutions, we’re essentially funding a system that can legally exclude the very students public education was designed to serve.

The true cost of choice

Voucher programs often fall short of covering the full cost of tuition, creating a system where only families that can afford to pay the difference truly benefit. This isn’t school choice — it’s school sorting. Meanwhile, every dollar diverted to vouchers is a dollar not invested in reducing class sizes, updating technology, training teachers, or maintaining safe facilities in public schools.

Our public schools need sustained funding to fulfill their mission and when we starve public education to feed private alternatives, we’re essentially telling some families their children don’t deserve a seat at the table.

The strength of our shared commitment

Public schools aren’t perfect — no institution is. But unlike private schools, we don’t get to choose our challenges. We embrace them all. When a child struggles, we don’t counsel them out or suggest they’d be “better served elsewhere.” We roll up our sleeves and find solutions. When our community faces difficulties, our schools step up as resource centers, emergency shelters and sources of stability.

This is the heart of public education: the unwavering commitment to serve every child, every family, every day. It’s messy, complex and demanding work. But it’s also where the real magic happens, where democracy, innovation, art, and so much more are born and nurtured.

Instead of abandoning our schools through these voucher schemes, let’s invest in making them even stronger.

This week, Congress is voting on legislation that could create an unprecedented national voucher program, one that would redirect public education funds to private schools on a scale we’ve never seen before. As this debate unfolds, we recognize Representative Glenn Thompson’s longstanding leadership and steadfast commitment to public education. He has consistently championed the needs of our public schools, educators and students. We now call on him to continue that leadership by opposing this legislation and standing firm in defense of the public schools that serve every child, not just a select few.

Let’s remember that our nation’s public education system is one of our democracy’s greatest achievements, where every child, regardless of ZIP code or circumstance, has access to a quality education. It’s a promise we’ve made to generations of families, and it’s a promise worth keeping.