A coalition of education and religious freedom groups rallied near the U.S. Capitol urging senators to defeat a Republican spending plan that would create a federal school voucher program and impose deep cuts to social service programs like Medicaid.
“Today, we’re here to claim a better vision for this country, one that demonstrates how this could be an inclusive country that takes care of everyone from the youngest to the oldest, from any race and any religion so that we can continue living this American dream,” said Isaias Guerrero, director of advocacy and mobilization for Popular Democracy, the grassroots advocacy group and lead organizer of the June 4 “No Vouchers, No Cuts” demonstration.
He was joined by more than 30 faith leaders and supporters representing organizations such as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Pastors for Children, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Alliance to Save Our Schools and synagogues and churches from around the country.
Their targets were provisions in President Donald Trump’s so-called “big beautiful bill” to provide $5 billion annually for vouchers, decrease taxes for the wealthy, cut hundreds of millions from food and medical assistance programs and raise the national debt by an estimated $2.4 trillion. The measure already has passed in the House and awaits action by the Senate.
Jennifer Hawks
The voucher program is a direct assault on public education, said Jennifer Hawks, director of advocacy for CBF.
“Public schools are essential to the great American experiment that all people are created equal,” she said. “They are among our most diverse institutions in American society, reflecting the religious, ethnic, racial, social and economic diversity within our communities.”
Private religious schools that would benefit from federal vouchers, on the other hand, seek not only to educate students but to ensure their spiritual formation for the benefit of religious communities, Hawks added. “Private religious schools often use religion in selecting students, staff and subjects to study. They may require parents to promise to attend a certain number of worship services each month or even require a reference letter from a pastor.”
She warned: “One thing should be abundantly clear: Parents should not have to publicly state a religious testimony in order to access a government benefit.”
She also cautioned supporters of vouchers to consider the potential downsides for congregations and their schools: “When we as churches ask the government to step in and pay for this ministry, we should not be surprised when some of the people in the pews decide there are other charitable causes more worthy of their tithes.”
Rabbi Robert Barr
Protecting public education is a moral responsibility because it contributes to learning but also to the principle of church-state separation, said Rabbi Robert Barr, founding rabbi of Congregation Beth Adam in Loveland, Ohio, and a faith advisory council member with Americans United.
Public schools provide education to students regardless of race and religion, while religious schools can discriminate based on race, ethnicity, faith and academic ability. And no American should be required to pay for another person’s religious beliefs through taxpayer-funded vouchers, he added.
“I, as a rabbi and member of the Jewish community, shouldn’t be asking my friends in the Christian community to support religious education for Jewish children. And it would be bizarre and awkward for them to ask me to help raise their children as Christians. It’s our individual responsibility as members of faith communities to fund that ourselves.”
Ayaan Moledina
Ayaan Moledina, federal policy director with Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, lamented the state’s recent passage of a $1 billion voucher program providing $10,000 per child for private education to participating families.
“Vouchers don’t work. A $10,000 voucher scam like what we just passed in Texas does not come close to covering private school tuition. What family living paycheck to paycheck can afford to make up the remaining $20,000 to $30,000 or more?”
In reality, vouchers are tuition discounts for the ultra-wealthy, said Moledina, adding that some private schools won’t accept them, anyway.
“They don’t want dollars intended for public schools and communities begging for these resources. They don’t want that stain on their reputation, and they don’t want to give incentives to the ultra-wealthy families already attending their schools.”
Charles Foster Johnson
The proposed federal voucher program is a violation of the very essence of what it means to be American, said Charles Foster Johnson, executive director of Pastors for Children and Pastors for Texas Children.
“The ink on the Constitution wasn’t even dry when John Adams (second U.S. president) said let there be not one square mile without a school in it, not paid for by the charitable contribution of a wealthy person, but by the public at the public’s expense.”
Johnson described the Texas voucher program as “shameful” in part because its passage was made possible by $12 million in contributions from a billionaire to enable Gov. Greg Abbott to defeat Republicans in the Legislature who opposed the plan in previous attempts.
“For 30 years in Texas, we have defeated private school vouchers in a bipartisan coalition, and we’re going to defeat them in this national Legislature through a bipartisan coalition,” he pledged.
Kyla McKay
But it will require convincing some Republicans in the Senate to insist on removing the voucher program from the spending bill, he said. “We can do this, y’all, because vouchers are a corruption of God’s common good.”
Kyla McKay, ruling elder at Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church in Houston, spoke against the cuts to Medicaid proposed in the spending plan.
“This administration seeks to harm the most vulnerable among us and tries to hide behind their faith as they do it,” said McKay, a substitute teacher and mother whose children have received life-saving care through Medicaid.
“We are here today to remind them that Jesus has called us to love and feed and clothe and educate and heal every person who is in need, and to treat everyone with dignity and respect.”
Related articles:
‘Big beautiful bill’ creates school voucher program that benefits the rich
Faith leaders decry ‘big beautiful bill’ as immoral and un-Christian