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Trump Lends Weight To School Vouchers. Will It Make A Difference?

The debate over school vouchers is heating up again in Texas, and newly installed president issued an executive order on Wednesday adding power to the pro side. Citing low test scores, Trump instructed national agencies to create guidelines for public schools to use federal funds to promote school vouchers.

“Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Education shall issue guidance regarding how States can use Federal formula funds to support K-12 educational choice initiatives,” it reads.

Meanwhile, the Texas Senate has fast-tracked a school voucher bill that could see a vote as early as next week.

School vouchers—which Republicans often call “school choice”—is the practice of using taxpayer dollars to reimburse parents for tuition to private schools. Though often presented as a way for parents to seek better educational fits for their children, the vast majority of money goes to wealthy Christian academies in urban or suburban areas. In states like Arizona, this has resulted in large amounts of cash being funneled into conservative Christian churches that fete figures like Trump for influence.

How much difference does Trump’s executive order make? It’s unclear. Unlike Trump’s other educational executive order threatening to cut funding for schools that respect transgender students or teach the history of institutional history, this order does not threaten school funds if no voucher system is created. As it stands, the federal government only accounts for 13.6 percent of school K-12 funding.

Nor is Trump’s reach into local schools powerful on an institutional level. The United States education system is famously decentralized, ceding most of the day-to-day operations to local school boards. Though the federal government can set various policies and goals, it doesn’t have the authority to advance a voucher system on its own.

However, the social and political influence of Trump on school vouchers is vast. It was through his first Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, that the nationwide push for vouchers started growing. DeVos, an AmWay heiress billionaire and sister to Blackwater founder Eric Prince, chaired the American Federation for Children Growth Fund (AFC), the nation’s largest private school promoting group, as well as the Texas Federation for Children.

It was through DeVos that vouchers achieved their current momentum, relaxing the guidelines that separated religious and secular instruction during her time in office. Trump’s current nominee to run the Department of Education, wrestling mogul Linda McMahon, has already stated that she plans to follow in DeVos’s footsteps.

Like Trump’s recent freeze on federal funding that has already been appropriated by Congress, and attempt by the administration to shift federal dollars away from their legally designated recipients will face immediate legal challenges. The current Trump plan is to use block grants that go to impoverished Americans as vouchers for any American that wants to attend a private school. The Department of Education does have some leeway there, but the matter is still certain to end up in court.

Trump’s executive order is unlikely to have immediate impact on Texas’s voucher debate, which was already underway before Trump started his second term. However, the president’s weight with the right-wing of his party could possibly sway the few Republican holdouts in the Texas House to finally pass the voucher agenda, even if his orders can’t quite accomplish it on their own.

Jef Rouner
Jef Rouner
Jef Rouner is an award-winning freelance journalist, the author of The Rook Circle, and a member of The Black Math Experiment. He lives in Houston where he spends most of his time investigating corruption and strange happenings. Jef has written for Houston Press, Free Press Houston, and Houston Chronicle.

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