School vouchers aren’t just bad policy—they’re unpopular, too
Year after year, PDK/Gallup releases an annual poll of public attitudes toward public schools, and it consistently finds that a majority of those polled oppose allowing students and parents to use taxpayer-funded vouchers to attend private schools. This year's poll, released today, found that 70 percent of Americans oppose funneling taxpayer dollars to private schools for tuition, the highest level of opposition to vouchers ever recorded.
We've long advocated against taxpayer funds being used for private and religious school. Here's why.
Vouchers harm religious liberty. Religious schools, which receive the overwhelming majority of taxpayer-funded vouchers, not only require all students to receive religious instruction and attend religious services, but also integrate their religious beliefs in everything they teach students (just one alarming example: a science textbook, in order to support creationist beliefs, claims the Loch Ness Monster is a living, breathing dinosaur). Thomas Jefferson and James Madison knew it was wrong to use taxpayer money—even three pence—to support religious education, because doing so amounts to
