One More Reason for States to Avoid Federal Vouchers

The Trump administration has ratcheted up its attack on discrimination in schools-- by which they mean, of course, discrimination against white guys.

They have hung their interpretation on Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard, arguing that it means that there can be no programs or benefits that white guys can't have. This has been the rationale for a widespread attack on all manner of college and university DEI wokitude.

Now they would like to come after high schools. Here's the opening paragraph from the IRS press release:

The Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have issued proposed regulations to end federal tax-exempt status for private schools that engage in racial discrimination, delivering on President Trump's Executive Orders ending discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity.

But they are also coming after elite public high schools, as covered by Liam Knox and Erin Hudson for Bloomberg. The threat here is to come after admissions practices that discriminate based on race (i.e. preferences to anyone but white guys). 

The threatened punishment is to cut off federal funding if the school is found to be violating the administration's funhouse mirror of civil rights law. 

But there's a problem with that. As Knox and Hudson point out:

But public high schools receive far less federal money than most colleges, giving the administration less leverage over their admissions practices without action from the courts. Bronx Science, for instance, received around $44,000 from the federal government last year, and Stuyvesant got a little more than $160,000 — less than 1% of the budget at both schools.

To really get leverage over public schools, the feds need strings to pull. Specifically, purse strings. For "regular" schools, Title I and IDEA provide an opportunity (though not if they successfully convert them all to state block grants) to control local schools, particularly those who serve many non-wealthy or special needs students. 

So federal school vouchers provide another opportunity for the feds to get tighter control over local schools, including those that aren't so dependent on Title I or IDEA funds. Particularly if they adopt some of the ideas of Marguerite Rozas and use those voucher funds to finance important programs. Imagine if Bronx Science was used to taking in a couple million in federal voucher funds.

And for the MAGA crowd that thinks this would be just swell, I ask you to imagine what the power of that program might do in the hands of President Hilary Clinton or President Zohran Mamdani. You didn't like how the feds used federal purse strings to push Common Core (neither did I)-- do you really want to see that movie again?

Federal vouchers represent, among their many shortcomings, a real chance for the federal government to gain more leverage for controlling local school districts. It's a bad idea.