Op-Ed #2: Vouchers Can Facilitate State-Sanctioned Private Discrimination

• In Event: The School Voucher Illusion: Exposing the Pretense of Equity

Abstract

Building on the first commentary, this op-ed delves into the history of discrimination in schools and explains how most school choice laws open the door to discrimination. The first instances of publicly funded school choice were expressly designed to discriminate by closing public schools and providing tax-supported vouchers to private schools that enrolled only white children (Gooden, Jabbar, & Torres, 2016). This deliberate act of defiance of the Supreme Court’s order to desegregate schools after the 1954 and 1955 decisions in Brown v. the Board of Education was eventually held to be unconstitutional (Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, 1969; Griffin v. County School Board of Prince County, 1964). The reality remains, however, that school voucher programs and discrimination have always been entwined (Ford, Johnson, & Partelow, 2017; Gooden, Jabbar, & Torres, 2016).

The student demographics of present-day voucher schools do not mirror the communities in which they are located. Private schools participating in voucher programs tend to be racially and socioeconomically concentrated and to enroll fewer children with disabilities or English language learners (Turner, 2017). Moreover, some religious schools participating in voucher programs engage in discrimination apparently tied to the schools’ religious doctrine, excluding students and families from other religions, or excluding LGBTQIA+ employees and students, as well as students from LGBTQIA+ families (Donheiser, 2017).

This op-ed concludes with policy recommendations aimed specifically at protecting the LGBTQIA+ community, which remains an unprotected group in almost all existing voucher programs.

Authors

• Suzanne E. Eckes, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Presenting Author

• Julie F. Mead, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Presenting Author