Kamala Harris’s Veep List is a Choice Between the Past and the Present for Education

Shapiro’s voucher problem

The Right’s assault on public education has accelerated in recent years, with 20 bills expanding school choice programs passing in 2023 alone. Out of those 20, only one was sponsored by a Democratic state senator and signed into law by a Democratic governor: Pennsylvania’s HB 301. The law provides substantial funding for public libraries, student mental health services and improving school infrastructure. However, tucked into the bill is $150 million directed to Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) programs.

Tax credit scholarships, a relatively recent invention of the school privatization effort, are programs that hide what is essentially a voucher scheme within the tax code. Wealthy donors can receive tax credits for contributing to private scholarship organizations that fund private school tuition for qualifying students. With a bit of effort, donors can potentially even profit, by combining these state credits with federal deductions for charity. 

Pennsylvania’s tax credit scholarship programs have always been controversial. Evidence overwhelmingly shows that these kinds of schemes are costly, ineffective and mainly serve wealthy parents, but voucher advocates rely on the woeful lack of data available to claim these programs work. Meanwhile, states like Arizona, which is currently experiencing a budget crisis after passing a universal voucher law in 2022, paint a very different picture. There, the majority of students taking advantage of the expanded vouchers had not previously attended public school, meaning Arizona taxpayers are now effectively subsidizing private school tuition for families who could already afford it, adding massive costs to the state’s education budget. Parents took advantage of nearly non-existent oversight to spend taxpayer money on ski trips, ninja warrior classes and Christian concerts. But experiences like this didn’t stop Shapiro from supporting tax credit scholarships or a later Republican-led effort to create direct vouchers (before being pressured by his party to veto it).

During his 2022 campaign Shapiro called for increasing funds to public schools alongside providing voucher access. This may seem like a contradiction, but proponents of programs like EITC and OSTC often insist they don’t affect school funding. Theoretically, it might be possible to effectively fund both — if states taxed the wealthiest earners to cover the budget shortfalls created by vouchers. But in the real world, as the experience of states like Arizona and Florida show, these programs siphon away state revenues, forcing cuts to services across the board, including public schools. 

Voters want good public schools

It’s not just bad policy to support vouchers — it’s also bad politics. Republicans have made no secret that their concerted effort to expand vouchers for private schools is not only an explicit attack on public schools but part of a larger war in which education is the primary battleground. In the 2022-23 fiscal year alone, Pennsylvania’s EITC and OSTC programs were responsible for sending $240 million in taxpayer money to religious schools that are largely free to discriminate against select populations of students (such as disabled students requiring additional services or LGBTQ+ youth). Another $17 million went to schools where tuition can exceed $41,000 — far beyond what a low-income family can afford, given the average scholarship amounts to just $2,000.

Voucher programs are sold as a way for families with children struggling in the public school system to find a better fit within private institutions that have more flexibility to tailor education to individual needs. And it’s true that a decent number of students with disabilities or from low-income households have been able to take part in these programs and benefit from them. However, some parents found that the amount of ​“choice” they actually had was limited, since private and religious schools enjoy far more ​“freedom to choose” than parents—meaning many choose not to admit students with higher needs or decline to protect marginalized students from bullying. As a result, many students were left adrift in a publicly subsidized private education market, forced to choose between long commutes, forgoing necessary services, or attending schools located in strip malls with no outdoor facilities.

These experiences with publicly funded private education have inspired both educators and the public to fight back against these attacks on public schools. Educators and academics have highlighted public education as foundational to democracy and associated the recent surge in voucher laws as part of a conservative plan to roll back social progress by remaking classrooms in their image. A surge of teacher union activity helped illuminate how budget cuts and school closures were impacting students. In the 2022 midterms, voters across the country showed up to vote for public education funding and against Republicans who made vouchers a central part of their platform. A 2023 poll by AP-NORC showed that 65% of Americans believe that the federal government should spend more on education. Another poll the same year, by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), confirmed that public school underfunding was a key issue on voters’ minds.

Several of Harris’s possible vice president candidates successfully leaned into the popularity of supporting public schools. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer won her 2022 reelection by 10 points in a race defined by her record of funding public schools and her opponent’s support for school choice. In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz won his reelection campaign by 8 points that same year, as a former teacher and union member overseeing a massive expansion in school funding and establishing universal free school meals. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear won reelection in 2023 with a campaign focused on raising teacher pay and implementing universal Pre-K. The same year, North Carolina’s extremely popular swing state Gov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency over conservative efforts to gut the education system.

These wins were buttressed by school board elections across the country where voters rejected conservatives’ plans for public education. And it wasn’t just Democrats who wanted to protect their schools; rural Republicans have bucked their party to block voucher expansions in southern states like Texas and Georgia. Even Josh Shapiro won his race in 2022 in part due to his opponent’s extreme stance on public education.

Privatization

Shapiro isn’t alone on the VP shortlist in expressing support for tax credit vouchers. In 2023, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker told reporters he was open to signing an extension of his state’s tax credit scholarship program. (That bill never made it out of the legislature, although there are efforts to revive it.) 

Public-private partnerships or P3s have long been a core feature of Democrats’ approach to policy and investment, hence the party’s previous promotion of charter schools. Despite dubious evidence of their effectiveness, and arguments that these partnerships represent a Trojan horse for privatization, even Democrats like Whitmer, Cooper and Walz have signed P3 laws to address issues with infrastructure and health care. While Shapiro may be catching heat for his support of tax credit vouchers now, the program is very much in line with the broad governing philosophy of the Democratic Party. 

Last week, Harris spoke at the AFT’s annual conference — a signal that she understands how important public education is to voters. But picking either Shapiro or Pritzker as VP risks undermining that good faith and squandering voters’ newfound enthusiasm (while signaling to big money donors that the Democrats remain open for business to privatizers, just not as overtly as Trump and his party). 

There is much more voter energy for protecting and improving public schools than there is for byzantine public-private schemes that benefit the well-off more than they do disadvantaged youth. As she undertakes her bid for the White House, Harris would do well to tap into that energy with a running mate who recognizes the essential value of public education in a democracy. 

Disclosure: The views expressed in this article are held by the author. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, In These Times does not support or oppose any candidate for public office.