{"id":140721,"date":"2023-03-15T15:35:28","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T20:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jbs.org\/?post_type=alert&p=140721"},"modified":"2023-03-24T11:40:33","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T16:40:33","slug":"stop-state-esas-and-vouchers-dont-shackle-parents-with-government-subsidies","status":"publish","type":"alert","link":"https:\/\/jbs.org\/alert\/stop-state-esas-and-vouchers-dont-shackle-parents-with-government-subsidies\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop State ESAs and Vouchers \u2014 Don\u2019t Shackle Parents With Government Subsidies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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State legislatures are increasingly considering and enacting school vouchers and Education Savings Accounts (ESAs). Although these proposals might sound good, they severely threaten individual freedom and parental rights by shackling parents and religious schools to government funding \u2014 and the various strings attached. It is imperative that state legislators oppose vouchers and ESAs, and instead protect educational freedom!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

State legislatures are increasingly considering and passing legislation implementing vouchers and ESAs, with West Virginia<\/a> and Arizona<\/a> being the first states to enact broad-based versions of this policy. Now, in 2023, even more states<\/a> are considering and enacting such legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supporters of vouchers and ESAs often describe it as \u201cschool choice\u201d or \u201cmoney following the child.\u201d However, these policies actually represent a major \u2014 and potentially disastrous \u2014 intrusion of government into private and home education.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, vouchers and ESAs are closely connected to the United Nations and its push<\/a> to indoctrinate<\/a> children with international-socialist ideology<\/a>. For example, the UN\u2019s education agency, UNESCO, has advocated subsidizing private schools with tax money in order to control them<\/a> \u2014 i.e., impose the same leftist standards on them as public schools<\/strong> \u2014 thus enabling the implementation of the UN\u2019s totalitarian Agenda 2030<\/a> scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As implied above, vouchers and ESAs are dangerous also because government can easily attach strings to the funding, forcing parents and private schools to submit to far-left indoctrination and other draconian government policies.<\/strong> In foreign countries, including Sweden, Australia, and Canada, private schools \u2014 including Christian ones \u2014 now teach leftist ideology and are practically indistinguishable from public schools, because they are shackled to government funding. The United States is next \u2014 a Republican-sponsored bill in Florida would have placed draconian restrictions<\/a> on homeschoolers in exchange for government funding. This bill won\u2019t be the last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, contrary to the slick \u201cfund students, not systems\u201d slogan, government schools will continue to receive the same levels of funding under ESA\/voucher policies. Such policies will simply increase<\/a> \u2014 not shift or reduce \u2014 government meddling in education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More information on the dangers of vouchers and ESAs can be found in Alex Newman\u2019s article “Vouchers: ‘School Choice’ Trap<\/a>” in the April 10, 2023 issue of The New American<\/em> magazine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Urge your state legislators to oppose all ESA and voucher programs, and to instead support fully defunding and abolishing the government-school system. Only then \u2014 rather than by false solutions \u2014 will we achieve fully educational freedom.<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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