We applaud President Trump’s leadership in securing enactment of the nation’s first ever national school voucher program, which has the potential to help hundreds of thousands of parents pay for private school expenses with taxpayer funds. The plan is part of President Trump’s just-signed domestic policy legislation, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. Significantly, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled several years ago that religious schools cannot be excluded from general scholarship programs solely because of their religious nature despite the constitutional doctrine of separation between church and state.
However, it must be noted, the plan, while an important step forward in vindicating the rights of religious school parents to make school choices for their children, is somewhat convoluted and hampered by some ambiguous statutory language. Thus, it involves U.S. taxpayers making donations to non-profit organizations committed to providing scholarships to students and receiving a credit on their federal tax bill for the full donated amount, up to a maximum of $1,700 per individual – although private school tuition is typically many times that amount. How to incentivize donors to contribute is not addressed.
In addition, the program contains an odd opt-out provision which allows certain states – likely to be blue, liberal-led ones, where many yeshiva students and families live – to decline participation on behalf of their citizens.
It is also unfortunate that, generally, the program is not closer to the voucher models used in some red states whereby parents are provided with education vouchers that can be redeemed at either public or private schools. Not only are those vouchers more easily managed, but they are also more faithful to the equitable notion that all students are entitled to a publicly funded secular education.
So while a differently designed program would have been more preferable, in the current political climate, it is unlikely anything more comprehensive would have passed.
