School Vouchers Have a Racist History and Troubling Impacts on Public Schools

Josh Cowen , a professor of education policy at Michigan State University , has been studying the right-wing push for school vouchers for more than 20 years .

Cowen's first book, The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers , outlines this scheme in stark and chilling detail.

Cowens says the push for vouchers devalues public schools and reorients education from a public good to a private enterprise.

11 states offer “universal school choice” to every K-12 student who wants it.

David Gergen : The right is running a political operation promoting its ideas in the courts and in state legislatures.

He says the right is trying to work white Evangelicals into a frenzy, repeatedly telling them they are oppressed.

Gergen says a lot of voucher proponents don’t want to have explicit conversations about race or racism.

Illinois recently became the first state in the country not to reauthorize state funding for vouchers.

The South Carolina Supreme Court recently ruled that they violate the state constitution.

Several states will vote on vouchers in November , Colorado has Amendment 80 and Kentucky has Amendment 2 .