What people are saying:

• Facebook User: “School choice” is just trickle down economics for education. It’s a gimmick that sounds great but redistributes wealth from those who can least afford it but are also the ones doing most of the work to create that wealth to those who already have more than enough!
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User BINGO
• Facebook User: education is a RIGHT in this country.
  the fact that people want competition in rights says they either dont understand them, or seek to destroy them.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User THIS
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association lest we forget the creation of private schools was the result of white flight from integration.
    vouchers are literally a return to this.
    it pisses me off to no end.
  • Secular Education Association: You get it! It sure is. Trying to turn the clock back to when racism was acceptable and encouraged.
• Facebook User: Protect your public schools.
• Facebook User: Absolutely!!! Vote for candidates who support public education!! 💙 💙
  #PublicEducationMatters
• Facebook User: This
• Facebook User:
• Facebook User: True- sad
• Facebook User: Separation of church and state needs to be reinforced! If religion wants to play politics and get funding they need to be taxed and audited on the regular just like the rest of us. If they refused, all I would think is “What are you hiding from everyone?” 🤔💲🔞👉👌💩
  • Facebook User: Facebook User broken logic is used here. I don’t think you truly understand separation of church and state…
  • Facebook User: According to the First Amendment of the Constitution, which prevents the government from establishing an official state religion (which is what Project 2025 is attempting) or interfering with the free exercise of faith (which is what Project 2025 has said it will attempt to do if they succeed in their schemes). What I’m suggesting is a fair compromise if they really want to influence state laws and fund elected officials, maybe they should pay their fair share. So maybe reinforced is the wrong word, but maybe instead reconsidered or renegotiated?
• Facebook User: This!!
• Facebook User: School choice literally means the school gets to choose, not the parent. Only the best, brightest, and richest students will get an education. This is what republicans do, privatize everything for profit over people. 😡 The GOP deregulated and privatized our healthcare back in the 70’s.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User Exactly. “Choice” is the sales pitch. Privatization is the playbook. We have watched it happen in healthcare too: public needs turned into private markets, then regular people get buried in bills, debt, and impossible choices. That is not freedom. That is profit over people.
• Facebook User: Wow, what a ridiculous diatribe. What are you so afraid of? That parents can choose a school that better meets the needs of their child? As if a certain “worldview” isn’t driving many public schools’ curriculum.
  • Secular Education Association: What are we afraid of?

    Bigots pretending “school choice” means they are entitled to taxpayer-funded schools where LGBTQ+ kids, disabled kids, non-Christian kids, poor kids, and kids from the “wrong” families can be excluded, shamed, denied services, or taught they are lesser.

    Parents already have the right to choose private religious education but you know that.
    What you want is for everyone else to pay for it while public schools are left with fewer resources to serve every child.

    And when you complain about the “worldview” in public schools, what you usually mean is inclusion, civil rights, religious neutrality, and the expectation that all kids are treated like they belong… 👀

    So thank you for making the point for us. That is exactly the mindset we are talking about.

  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association no, we mean we want parents to choose the best education for their children, and allow their tax dollars follow the child. Why do you think only the wealthy should have access to better schools? Why do you think the poor should be forced into substandard public schools? I want kids to have the best education possible, and that means not forcing them into public schools.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association it’s interesting that you see bigotry in others but not yourself.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association nice projection. Use bigotry to accuse of bigotry.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association LGBTQ+ kids, disabled kids, non-Christian kids, poor kids, and kids from the “wrong” families will also receive vouchers and be able to go to a school that specialises in whatever education they want.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User A voucher is not a scholarship, it’s a coupon. A poor kid’s family is not going to be able to afford to send their child to a private school.
  • Facebook User: If you want to send your kids to private schools that have a different “worldview”, pay for it yourselves. Without vouchers or stolen public money.

    Y’all seem to act like other taxpayers and the public are obligated to pay for private schools that teach kids that some groups of people are better than others – nope. The “worldview” that you take issue with from public schools is usually the simple idea that everyone is equal and deserves a sound, secular education. 🙄

  • Facebook User: I promise you disability families will not have enough money way to make up the difference and will be FORCED into homeschool and deeper poverty. Not every child has 2 parents and a decent livable income. But you don’t care about that do you? You mostly just want the disabled and disadvantaged to disappear! 🤬
  • Facebook User: Facebook User vouchers are just a chiseler’s choice to undermine our system. Private schools don’t serve the public, period. Public schools do.
  • Facebook User: I live in PA and I do support giving parents the ability to choose the type of education whether Catholic or Cyber Charter because it is the parents responsibility to what is best for their child’s needs whether it is religous responsibility or like in my own childrens situations. My 2 Autistic boys need a more individualized setting due to issues that make it difficult for them to get the free and appropriate education they are entitled in a safe environment. They attend a cyber charter that is ranked in the top 18 nationwide for Special education. They NEED the choice.
    https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1NkUzUMNBW/
  • Facebook User: Facebook User blanket statements will not work in this debate! You are forgetting some charters are specifically created or specialize in undeserved children with special needs that the system has failed.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User and those are few, far between, have been found NOT to be the real deal. They have been found to be using our kids for profit, claiming to be providing the service and actually just privatizing the profit. The loss is socialized for later or owned by the family, not the business set up to capitalize on our neediest children & families.

    Let’s make the whole system better for everyone not just those in a lucky zip code.

  • Facebook User: Facebook User They can if the private school does not need more money than the voucher. Most of the private schools in my area and even some universities have smaller tuition than what the government spends for k-12
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Smaller tuition does not mean its all covered by the voucher. Also, public schools must accept all students. Private schools do not.

    Private schools in the United States have a history of racial discrimination.
    Many were founded as segregation academies to avoid integrated public schools. They legally excluded Black students until a Supreme Court ruling in the 1970s. High tuition then became a barrier that maintained racial separation.
    Some of these schools still exist and now receive public funds through voucher programs.

    Vouchers are an attempt by well-off white people to get a coupon to send their kids to schools where there are few or no minorities.

  • Facebook User: Facebook User That is very racist of you to suppose non-whites don’t care about quality of education enough to take advantage of vouchers to escape poorly functioning public schools.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User I’m stating facts, get out of here with your gaslighting. However, you are a perfect example as to why white conservatives want to defund public schools, you love the poorly educated.

    Private‑school students do score higher on standardized tests and attend selective colleges at higher rates. But this is largely because private schools enroll students from higher‑income, more educated families, and they can select whom they admit. Public schools must take everyone.

    IOW, Private schools are today’s segregation academies. No better than public schools. Public schools are something else conservatives will break and privatize.

  • Facebook User: Nobody is saying that you can’t choose to send your children to an expensive private school. It’s saying that they may be eliminated from being able to go to a public school, which is free, and paid for with government funds.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association You just showed your hand with this comment 😂

    Pretending your fight is about anything in red letters in the meme, when really it’s about control. You want to control what the schools teach, what services they provide, because you know better than parents’ what information their kids should be exposed to.

  • Facebook User: Facebook User Your facts are wrong:

    https://www.niche.com/k12/search/most-diverse-private-schools/m/denver-metro-area/

  • Facebook User: Facebook User its always the religious people who think they should get taxed money for school while their same religious institutions don’t pay taxes… the hypocrisy is astounding.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User so what you are saying is that you have no idea how curricula is written and implemented or that “services” are required by state and federal law.
  • Facebook User: Choose whatever you can pay for yourself. You are allowed to freely make that choice, but you are not free to sabotage our public schools.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Did you look at that or just cut and paste? That page tells me nothing about the type of diversity, it’s just a rating. What’s the criteria?
  • Facebook User: Facebook User ridiculous nonsense
• Facebook User: Please save the teachers union !
• Facebook User: You’re pandering
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User you’re helping drive our posts reach! Thanks!
  • Facebook User: Facebook User to people that want public schools to be public and free of religious content? I think they are okay with that 🤣
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
• Facebook User: Truth
• Facebook User: Truth💯
• Facebook User: But why don’t people want to have children? 🤦‍♀️
• Facebook User: Exactly.
• Facebook User: This country was founded on the concept of free public education for all.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User it literally was NOT founded on the concept of free public education since that didn’t really start to be wide spread in America until after the 1820’s. Well past the point of our country’s founding and building principles.

    Let me guess, you got that public education knowledge? 😂🤣

  • Facebook User: Facebook User actually it wasn’t. That came later. The founding fathers wanted an educated class to lead and the majority trained to labor.
  • Facebook User: That is so inaccurate that you probably were taught that in a public school.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Jefferson actually did believe in education for all (I’m sure his view of “all” was not the same as ours). He was a big proponent of meritocracy, and felt it could only be achieved by educating those who showed promise. The founding fathers were not united in all of their opinions.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User attacking public education isn’t going to benefit you in anyway.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User we really shouldn’t be putting the founding fathers on a pedestal. They were wrong about many things.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User you should read white trash. The founding fathers didn’t want us to be educated. People in power rarely want that. They literally made it illegal for the people they enslaved to be able to read. Not people who wanted education for anyone but other white males.
  • Facebook User: Galarama Sunshine No it wasn’t. Never did the founding fathers intend on the public school system to become a place of progressive indoctrination and intend on parents surrendering their rights to the public education system. The fact is not all children should be in public school. Violent and disruptive children should be sent somewhere else. They may have the right to attend, but if they can not be a productive member of the education system, they should absolutely be removed.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Nah. The head of the first board of education literally said he wanted a system that taught people to stand on an assembly line rather than to educate, because an educated person would never be happy standing on an assembly line.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User au contraire. I benefited greatly in the amusement of proving a person wrong.
  • Facebook User: you really have all the answers.. you should be a teacher and make the system a better place!
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Ummm no, when this country was founded, basic education was usually done in the home. Most parents gave their children a basic education. Most children were then apprenticed in an occupation or sent to a school that taught education beyond the basics.

    The Federalist Papers were writtent to appeal to the average farmer. I dare most Americans to go read them today. Most will find them difficult to read or follow. Harvard required students to know Latin, French, and Greek in order to be admitted. Today, most college students do not even know English well enough to do at a college level (which is really a 10th grade level).

    As for compulsory public education, that was started in the 1850s in Massachusetts and they actually had to call out the national guard to force parents to sent their children to school. It gained tracktion by those like the Rockefellers who wanted a docile workforce who would not have the ability to start their own businesses and who would be willing to do mindless work and be happy about it.

  • Facebook User: Facebook User while I agree with the sentiment, I’m very curious to learn more. What founding principles, documents, or people boast public education for all?
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Are you replying to me? I do other things to support the schools. I’ve coached and participated a good bit.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User no it was founded on the free exercise of religion.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User

    There’s a lot to unpack in your question and its answer. Sorry for the length.

    I don’t want to bury the lead here, so the short answer is that many of the founding generation were radical advocates of public education. They considered it essential to a self-governing republic. Benjamin Franklin famously established the first public library in America. Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill in Virginia in 1779 to establish state-funded elementary, secondary, and even college level education. John Adams wrote the commitment to public education into the Massachussetts state constitution, saying, “Wisdom, and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, [are] necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties.” Benjamin Rush championed a free public school system in Pennsylvania. Noah Webster (yes that Webster) fiercely argued that public education was a matter of national survival, and he published the first American textbook in 1783 – The American Spelling Book.

    Those are but a sample, but the point is that there is clear evidence that many prominent figures of the founding generation absolutely supported the ideological commitment to public education. Who they considered part of the “public” or “citizen” (in a cultural snese, not legal citizenship, as those ideas were still not developed yet) was certainly affected by the racism and mysoginy of the time, but the rationale of governments educating their populations as a core principle and necessary feature of self-governance was pretty clear.

    This was true even in a world of staggeringly different context. In the founding and early republic days of the United States, the basic education needed to function in society at most levels could be managed at home, or it was within the purview of the church. Industrialization marked the first substantial change to that context. Then came advances in medicine by the later half of the 19th century (Germ theory of disease) that led to the professionalization of career paths in medicine, sanitation, engineering, etc. That kind of specialization required higher levels of education, and thus the baseline was pushed upward – beyond what typical households could be expected to manage. That context developed exponentially faster throughout the 20th century – air travel, disinfection of water supplies and public health science, macroeconomics, globalization, mechanization of agriculture, the chemical and nuclear age, space exploration, computers and the information age. In the 1790s, though, none of this was on the horizon.

    So, those of the founding generation who advocated for public education may not have put it expressly in terms that we do today. That, however, makes their advocacy even more potent for today’s context. In a vastly more complicated world, the need for public education is even more crucial.

  • Facebook User: Facebook User thank you for the effort you put into the response
  • Facebook User: Facebook User thank you. I knew that Jefferson and Adams did not always agree, but they did absolutely believe that without public education there could be no democracy.
• Facebook User: This is spot on!
• Facebook User: It is so hard to understand why our “leaders” don’t understand OR truly don’t care!!!💔😡
• Facebook User: They want to turn everything into a marketplace where you just have to buy it yourself and nothing is done collectively as a community.
  Which is the most expensive option for the consumer but the highest profit for whatever corporation decides to take over education.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User No they do not want to fund indoctrination.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Oh they definitely want indoctrination… You need only look at who they want the money to funnel to.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Interesting take. So, it seems it’s a battle of choice. Thus, people advocate for choice. Otherwise, people are forced to submit to the progressive indoctrination. Fix the public educations system and you will see more people return. It’s currently a failing system and for some reason progressives want to trap people into that system.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Any failures of the system are a feature the Republicans have been building into it for years. They break things so they can say “look how broken it is”.
• Facebook User: School vouchers are an attempt to destroy the public school system- the system that allowed the rise and success of the middle class after WWII. DO NOT vote for any candidate that supports school vouchers.
• Facebook User: Amen
• Facebook User: Wow…great post.
• Facebook User: School choice ( aka vouchers/ tax credits) is a shell game played with the education of children.
  Sleight of hand; now you see it, now you don’t kind of thing.
  With these ‘tax credits’, a majority of folks who use these for ALREADY had a child/children in private school. It’s a discount for the wealthy.
  Another point; historically, many, MANY private schools have raised their tuition after vouchers were implemented…still staying out of financial reach of most families.
  Then you have the states were the vouchers/ tax credits have blown ENORMOUS holes in a state’s budget.
  So much were other needed services are cut back.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User you are correct. The cost of vouchers comes almost directly from the public school academic funds. Academic public school funding is also not increased when vouchers are used. Public schools greatly suffer as they must offset the cost through cutting back.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Many of these families are not rich. Their public school was so horrendous, they opted to make significant sacrifices to send their child to a place that would actually provide them opportunity, and they could get away from the toxic doctrine or equity. The voucher program allows a family to put the tax dollars that are allocated for their child towards a program that actually benefits their child.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Then public schools should change and create an environment that eradicates equity. Stop the progressive indoctrination.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Facts say otherwise.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User lol I am sure you believe that. Unfortunately, you are more interested in your ideologies than the real world. Let me know when you have something more than just saying nope. lol
  • Facebook User: Facebook User our voucher program only accepts families in a lower tax bracket. And the school only receives a small portion of the money that goes to a public school per student. Our teachers are not included in any benefits that public schools get. Our tuition is a very low tuition. We are a small school of about 75 students. The vouchers we are allowed by the state is a small number and for those that can’t afford tuition. And we didn’t even get new voucher students last year. I don’t understand why so many are against school choice. I am not a voucher recipient and pay for my child to attend. But there are things that I do not like about the public school.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Would that be a private religous school ?
    There are several reasons why I am against school choice. Some are listed above.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User we are a private Christian Academy. There are aspects of common core i’m not a fan of and believe it has contributed to the educational decline. I believe students still need to have text books and learn to study with them as well as have computer knowledge. I believe there is a place for religion in schools for those that want it. And i believe all teachers deserve good pay no matter what school they teach in.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Religion does NOT belong in public schools, public school funds should NOT be used for religious school.
    The rest of your comment seems like you dont really know much about public schools and are just regurgitating what you have heard.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User prayer should be allowed in schools for those that choose to participate. Karl Marx didn’t believe in God and that brought on communism.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User the rest of comment is true as too what is happening in my area. Our public schools are a mess. Education scores should be higher.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User cursive writing should be brought back. Spelling and vocabulary should continue after 3rd grade. Blends should be taught through 2nd grade. These are just some things in my area.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User our local high-school no longer uses text books. Teachers give assignments to be completed on chrome books. While I believe using chrome books is educational when it comes to research, writing papers etc. I do not believe the entire curriculum should be on chrome books.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User majority is not all. If just one single income child can go to a better school to get a better education and have a better chance at getting out of poverty, I am for it. Who cares if the majority already have kids in private schools, it will help out so many that aren’t. But guess you would rather keep them dumb and poor, not give them a chance to break the cycle of poverty. You probably are also for keeping black voters segregated in their own district so they don’t dilute the white vote.