How the Federal Tax Credit School Voucher Creates Opportunities for Discrimination

The new federal tax credit voucher scheme is riddled with loopholes and opportunities for abuse and discrimination. The intent of the plan is clear: provide money to unregulated scholarship granting organizations (SGO’s) who then give money to families for education services (private and religious schools, tutors, publishers of education materials, etc.). There are no definitive guidelines or regulations that provide oversight on how the SGO’s will distribute the scholarships to individual students or on the operations of those providers who receive the money when families receive a scholarship.

This federal voucher bill is much broader than most existing state voucher programs, thereby opening the door for schools that receive the scholarships to exercise significant leeway on who they admit to their schools. The bill’s wording states: ”Unlike most existing state programs, the program does not include any additional requirements related to a student's receipt of a scholarship, nor does it place any requirements on private schools that enroll scholarship recipients.”

Under the bill, when a taxpayer takes the $1700 credit and identifies a scholarship granting organization to receive the money, the rest of the process is in the hands of the SGO’s.  Once a family receives a scholarship to attend a private or religious school, no state or federal official can require those schools to alter their “creed, practices, admission policy, hiring policy or curriculum.” Hence, a private or faith-based school is free to discriminate against students and staff on the taxpayers’ dime. 

In contrast to other federal funding, this tax credit voucher scheme means that “if a student experiences harassment or discrimination based on race, national origin, sex, religion, or disability, families may have little or no ability to hold private schools accountable or seek remedies comparable to those guaranteed in public schools.”

A federal voucher does not automatically grant students access to the school of their choice. Private and religious schools set their own admission requirements, adopt their own curriculum, and they can pick and choose their students. They are not legally required to provide services to students who have disabilities, are English language learners, or come from diverse family and religious backgrounds. They can also discriminate against students based on their gender identities or those of their parents. 

Adopting laws designed to forbid oversight or accountability may protect the school’s discrimination policies, but those laws certainly don't protect the interest of taxpayers, society, or the students themselves.

Several Colorado legislators are trying to address some of the flaws in this bill by requiring anti-discrimination guardrails from the private and religious schools that receive taxpayer money from SGO’s. However, Colorado’s Governor Polis has indicated concerns with this legislation. Polis is the only Democratic Governor who has opted the state into the federal voucher scheme.