Connecticut consistently ranks as a top state for K-12 public education, and that is no accident. Our public schools educate nearly 90% of the state’s K-12 students, and like other highly ranked states, we ensure public dollars go to public schools. In fact, the best states for education in the country have this in common: no school vouchers.
Not surprisingly, the states ranked at the bottom for public education—those with the weakest outcomes for students—are all states with school voucher schemes.
There is zero reliable evidence that voucher programs improve overall student success, and some programs have been shown to have negative effects for students receiving vouchers.
A voucher by any other name…
As the Trump administration ramps up its attack on public education, their latest tactic is the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit (FSTC), or Education Freedom Tax Credit (EFTC). Set to roll out in late 2026, it’s nothing more than another voucher scheme. That means federal dollars that could provide smaller class sizes, updated learning materials, technology, and critical student support would be used to subsidize private school tuition and other non-public initiatives.
Supporters of the federal voucher program argue that public schools will not be financially harmed and may even receive additional funding. However, those funds would not flow directly to public schools.
Questions to ask
Public schools have a responsibility to serve every student; they operate with public oversight and transparency. Private schools and other educational programs do not share those same obligations.
So, when public dollars are diverted to pay for non-public programs, we need to ask: To whom are those programs accountable?
With few details about the FSTC, it’s also important to ask
- Who decides which programs get funded?
- Who are the real winners and losers?
- What is the Trump administration’s track record on education?
- What is the administration’s track record on affordability?
What happens next
State governors have the power to reject this first national voucher program and prevent a tidal wave of funding to unaccountable private schools. They have until the end of 2026 to make a decision for their state, as the program goes into effect on January 1, 2027. A coalition of union presidents representing educators in states with Democratic governors has urged those governors to opt out of the Trump administration’s voucher program and publicly reaffirm their commitment to public education.
History lesson
We also cannot ignore the history of vouchers in this country. Voucher programs have their roots in efforts to resist school desegregation following the Brown v. Board of Education decision in the 1950s, and questions about discrimination and access have continued to surround voucher programs ever since. The fact is, vouchers discriminate against students with disabilities, strip away students’ human and civil rights, and exacerbate racial segregation.
Rather than creating greater disparities and more ways to separate students and schools, we must continue working toward a system that expands opportunity for every child.
Connecticut doesn’t need vouchers. Connecticut needs continued investment in the public schools our communities already depend on.
The federal voucher program
The Education Freedom Tax Credit is a private school voucher program, championed by Project 2025, Besty DeVos, Senator Ted Cruz, and others, designed to funnel public funds into unaccountable K-12 private and religious schools.
States that participate will start or expand a near-universal K-12 private school voucher program.
These states cannot put conditions on the program that would change this fact. States cannot transform this into a program that solely supports public school students.
Enrollment losses driven by the program will have negative fiscal impacts, such as school closures and pressure on the federal budget, as deficits rise, which will result in cuts to federal education funding, such as Title I and IDEA funding.
Estimates of the program’s total annual cost range as high as $50 billion per year—five times the cost of all state-level voucher programs combined.
6 Reasons to Reject Federal Vouchers
Here’s why state governors should reject the first national voucher program and prevent a tidal wave of funding to unaccountable private schools.
The facts: Why vouchers don’t work
FACT #1
There’s no link between vouchers and gains in student achievement
There’s no conclusive evidence that vouchers improve the achievement of students who use them to attend private school. Nor is there any validity to claims that, by creating a “competitive marketplace” for students, vouchers force public schools to improve. In fact, the most dramatic improvements in student achievement have occurred in places where vouchers do not exist—such as Texas and Connecticut. Instead, those states and communities focused on teacher quality and extra help for students who need it. Where there is conclusive evidence is that investing more money in public education improves student achievement.
FACT #2
Vouchers undermine accountability for public funds
Private schools have almost complete autonomy with regard to how they operate: who they teach, what they teach, how they teach, how (if at all) they measure student achievement, how they manage their finances, and what they are required to disclose to parents and the public. Moreover, the absence of public accountability for voucher funds has contributed to rampant fraud, waste, and abuse in current voucher programs. Voucher schemes drain taxpayer dollars from public schools, devastating state budgets. Arizona’s universal education savings account program called “Empowerment Scholarship Accounts” has decimated public education funding and fueled a one-billion-dollar state budget shortfall closed only with cuts to many essential public services. Cheaper, more limited voucher schemes are sometimes peddled as an answer to this problem, but these plans inevitably balloon in spending over time, producing the same crises. Indiana launched vouchers with a $15 million budget and narrow purpose, but now projects spending over $600 million in 2024 largely benefit well-off families already enrolled in private schools—an alarming and growing trend in voucher programs across the country. If we’re serious about doing what’s right for every child’s future, let’s do what works: support public schools so that every student has inviting classrooms, modern technology and textbooks, and class sizes that are small enough for one-on-one attention.
FACT #3
Vouchers do not reduce public education costs
Actually, they increase costs, by requiring taxpayers to fund two school systems, one public and one private. The result is that public schools, which educate 90 percent of students, wind up with less funding. This leads to larger class sizes and fewer resources, such as textbooks, school nurses and counselors, lab equipment, and music and athletic programs.
FACT #4
Vouchers do not give parents real educational choice
Participating private schools may limit enrollment, and in many cases may maintain exclusive admissions policies and charge tuition and fees far above the amount provided by the voucher. Unlike public schools, private and religious schools can—and do—discriminate in admissions on the basis of gender, religion, sexual orientation, ability, behavioral history, prior academic achievement, standardized test scores, interviews with applicants and parents, and income.
FACT #5
Vouchers are rooted in segregation and perpetuate racism
Vouchers were first created after the Supreme Court banned school segregation with its ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. School districts used vouchers to enable white students to attend private schools, which could (and still can) limit admission based on race. As a result, the schools that served those white students were closed, and schools that served black students remained chronically underfunded. By design, voucher programs operate with impunity and are not subject to any meaningful oversight, allowing the pattern of discrimination to continue today. Unlike public schools, private schools can (and some do) limit their admission based on race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, and any other number of factors. Even for students who do make it through the gauntlet of a discriminatory admissions practice, racist rules such as banning afros can target students for discipline or expulsion with little recourse. Furthermore, vouchers rarely cover the full cost of tuition, so families who were promised a better education are left footing the bill.
FACT #6
Voucher programs give choice to private schools, rather than students and their families
Vouchers enable taxpayer-funded discrimination and strip vulnerable students of various protections and rights, as private schools are not bound by many key provisions of civil rights such as those under Title VI, Title IX, most of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Every Student Succeeds Act. Students and their families are often not informed about protections they must give up when accepting a voucher. Private schools have no regulated discipline policies and students can be disciplined, counseled out, or excluded for a variety of reasons, leaving SWD especially vulnerable as a disability can be perceived as challenging behavior. A significant number of existing private school families jump at the opportunity for voucher eligibility by obtaining superficial documentation to claim disability status. Consequently, students with real needs may be further crowded out by a voucher system. Even voucher programs that exclusively serve SWD fail to serve all SWD. Studies show that these programs tend to exclude students with more severe disabilities.
Vouchers Today: Waste, Fraud, and Abuse
The lack of transparency, oversight, and accountability common in voucher programs often leads to waste, fraud, and abuse. This ranges from extravagant spending on trips to ski resorts to Arizona’s case of creating “ghost” students to defraud the state of voucher funding—even ensuring that these non-existent students had documented disabilities to prompt the highest level of payout. Further, both research and investigative reporting reveal that most new voucher users are students already enrolled in private schools. In other words, voucher expansions facilitate subsidies for well-off families at the taxpayers’ expense.
80%
The number of voucher applicants in Arizona who did not attend a public school, meaning they were already attending private schools or being home schooled.