Board of Education South-offers important context for parents as they weigh whether they should trade public for private schools and support the use of vouchers to do so.Įlsewhere across the South, resistance to public school integration dragged on for years. Uncovering the racist legacy of the nation’s first major expansion of private schools-in the post- Brown V. It is no accident that Deep South states are represented in this movement en force, as this is the very region where efforts to divert public dollars to private schools first began. One prominent example from this past February is the Arkansas Learns Act, introduced by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, which includes vouchers to provide up to $6,600 per student attending a private school. According to Education Week, “Private school choice is not a new thing, but what we’re seeing now is very new.” Nine more had expanded existing programs. As of July 2023, seven states had initiated a universal voucher program. As communities across the nation are experiencing heightened tension and acrimony, including fights over “parents’ rights” concerning public school classroom curricula and library books, a wave of states are implementing “universal vouchers.” These allow public dollars to follow any student-not just children with disabilities or those in poor-performing schools-to private schools, among other uses.
