Betsy DeVos’ Education Tax Credits Will Take Money Away from the States
This article was originally posted on The Progressive and titled:
Four Things Betsy DeVos Doesn’t Want You to Know about Education Tax Credits
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is a big fan of educational tax credits. In a speech at the American Federation of Children’s Policy Summit on May 22, she showcased Denisha Merriweather, who used a tax-credit scholarship to attend a church-affiliated private school in Florida. (The American Federation for Children, a group that pushes school privatization, is a group created by Betsy DeVos and her husband Dick.)
Merriweather is the same student President Trump introduced during his address to the Joint Session of Congress when he promoted “school choice”for students in public schools.
The DeVoses, through the American Federation for Children, also happen to be major contributors to the American Legislative Exchange Council, which drafts corporate-friendly model legislation for Republican state lawmakers. ALEC wrote model legislation titled The Great Schools Tax Credit Program Act.
Education tax credits are similar to school vouchers. A voucher is money paid by the state to cover private school tuition for a student. Voucher money comes straight out of public school funds.
Vouchers are unconstitutional in eighteen states and one of the reasons is that the money can go to a religious school, crossing the line between church and state.
School vouchers have also yielded poor results. Research shows that low-income voucher students take losses academically and most don’t recover over a two-year period.
In a “scholarship tax credit program,” the money bypasses the state and instead goes through a go-between, a “scholarship granting organization” to a private school to pay a student’s tuition in full or in part. Typically, these organizations keep 10 percent of the Betsy DeVos’ Education Tax Credits Will Take Money Away from the States | Seattle Education:
