To the Victors Go the Spoils, Part III: School Vouchers
My, oh my, do we live in interesting times.
As I sit down to write this week’s newsletter, Arabic-language news hums in the background, narrating what looks like the end of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. I’m no expert on the conflict or the region, but I’m perceptive enough to recognize the significance of this moment.
A coalition of Islamists calling themselves Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a rebel alliance calling themselves the Syrian National Army, and Kurdish nationalists have toppled a regime that dates back to Hafiz al-Assad’s (Bashar’s father) power grab in 1971. There’s jubilation in Damascus today, but I am cautious and especially think people in the West should be careful about cheerleading for certain rebels. The saying goes, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”—not “The enemy of my enemy is virtuous.” For what it’s worth, I’m working on landing a podcast guest who can unpack this news in a future episode.
Now, to the planned topic this week: today is the third and final entry in our series on the likely policies of the incoming Trump administration.
In Part I, we examined economic policies, particularly tariffs and tax cuts. In Part II, we examined immigration policy, including the executive orders likely to roll out in January. This week, we turn our attention to education policy.
But first, some context.
A Primer on the Role of the Feds in Education Policy
The federal role in education is, frankly, limited. Public education isn’t mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, so, thanks to the 10th Amendment, most education funding and policy are state-driven. According to the Department of Education, federal funds made up only 8-10% of total spending in a typical US school. But education in the US is a trillion dollar annual affair and neoliberal reformers and privatizers have been eyeing seizing increasing slices of that pie for decades, ever since A Nation at Risk hit the scene in 1983. all those reasons, the federal role in K-12 education boils down to two primary functions:
Steering federal dollars to states, primarily through grants
Administering and enforcing civil rights laws in education
Keep this in mind when the incoming administration talks about “terminating” the Department of Education. This isn’t just about shutting down a bureaucracy; it’s a rollback of federal protections for children with disabilities and other marginalized groups. Of course, they don’t frame it that way—“Vote for us, we want to gut protections for disabled kids” isn’t exactly a winning slogan—but it’s the practical outcome of their policy agenda.
In particular, if you live in a US state lacking robust protections for students with disabilities written into the law, you are potentially about to enter a phase in the “American experiment” where your kids will be cut adrift by federal authorities for the first time since the Johnson administration.
Here Come the Vouchers
Because the federal government’s direct role in education policy is constrained, its real influence lies in funding decisions—or the threat of withholding funds. One area where the new administration plans to wield this stick aggressively is in pushing so-called “school choice” initiatives, especially vouchers. This is the loud and clear signal from Secretary of Education Designate and WWE magnate, Linda McMahon. are sold as a lifeline for low-income families stuck in “failing” public schools, but in reality, they’re a windfall for wealthy families. Every voucher campaign (see below) features earnest looking Black children sitting in classrooms. But the overwhelming majority of kids using vouchers (for example 61% in Indiana and 94% in West Virginia) are from affluent, white households.
Here’s how the hustle works: most vouchers don’t cover the full cost of private school tuition, so they’re useless for low income students. Families already paying for private education are the real winners, pocketing a taxpayer subsidy for an expense they were already shouldering. Vouchers effectively siphon money from public school budgets because of per pupil funding formulas. Public schools further suffer because as students leave, their fixed costs—salaries, utilities, maintenance—don’t shrink. The result? Already under-resourced schools are gutted further.
Then there’s the issue of who gets to participate. Private schools can—and often do—reject students with disabilities, behavioral challenges, or other needs, leaving public schools to serve the most vulnerable students with even fewer resources. Most private schools receiving voucher funds are religious institutions or “segregation academies” established to dodge integration after Brown v. Board of Education. This means taxpayers are funding a subsidy for the wealthy, for religious indoctrination, and for institutions rooted in the racist backlash to desegregation.
I say all of this as a teacher, for the last five years, at a private school where the tuition is the equivalent of a well-equipped Toyota Corolla. A voucher doesn’t make that level of tuition any more attainable for a working family, but it can knock the equivalent of a country club membership or a Rolex off the tuition bill of the wealthiest Americans.
Vouchers aren’t about expanding opportunity; they’re about entrenching privilege and diverting public dollars to private interests. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
As we’ve seen throughout this series the incoming administration has a series of proposals that will make life harder for working families: tariffs, rising food costs, violent immigration enforcement, reduced enforcement of civil rights law in the education space, and the further defunding of public schools, are all on the table. On the other hand, wave after wave of giveaways is coming to wealthy families at a time when wealth inequality is reaching the levels of the Gilded Age. America is fast becoming a place where the rich are being handed heaven and the poor are fighting like hell to survive.
There are other policy icebergs on the horizon: norms around corruption and self-dealing have taken blow after blow over the last decade. A national abortion ban has the support of The Republican Study Committee and federal enforcement of various civil rights laws will surely plummet. There will be a resurgence of violent rightwing paramilitary groups and street brawlers like the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer.
The inability of his opponents in DC to effectively articulate an affirmative economic message in opposition to all of this shows there’s no one really fighting for working people, while wealthy families have two national political parties tripping over themselves to cater to their needs.
There’s so much work ahead of us.
As always, if you have any thoughts or feedback about the newsletter, I welcome it, and I really appreciate it when folks share the newsletter with their friends.