SiX Economic Power Project: Back To School Edition
By: Ida Eskamani, SiX's Senior Director, Legislative Affairs
The Economic Power Project (EPP) is SiX's national economic justice initiative, organizing legislators committed to building economies that empower people and advance justice. With school back from summer break, our August edition is all about public schools.
WATCH: FTC Chair Khan keynote at the American Federation of Teachers conference, linking labor and antitrust as united fights for workers’ freedoms. Learn more about the FTC’s efforts to ban non-compete agreements nationwide here.
The Hard-fought Promise of Public Schools
Education access is directly tied to economic and political power, which is why universal public education was never given to us – it was hardfought. Today, a coordinated and well-funded state-by-state effort to privatize public schools through vouchers, tax credits, or “education savings accounts,” is rooted in this history, designed to roll back progress and concentrate power in the hands of the elite few.
The Racist Roots of Private School Vouchers
The privatization of public schools has its roots in racism and segregation. After the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board decision, school vouchers were used as a tool for perpetuating segregation the Court had ruled unconstitutional. Southern policymakers passed laws setting up tuition voucher or grant programs closing down public school systems altogether, rather than desegregate.
Today, vouchers still promote segregation and discrimination by funneling public funds to private schools, which are often more racially segregated than public schools and discriminate against students based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, ability, and religion. Vouchers mostly fund students who are already attending private school, and wealthy families are overwhelmingly the recipients of school voucher tax credits. Rural communities in particular are harmed by the redistribution of resources towards private vouchers.
The Extremist Network Consolidating Power by Dismantling Public Education
The same coordinated network of extremist billionaires, think tanks, and corporations pushing state laws to privatize public education are also working with legislators to erase Black history, criminalize queer kids, ban books, censor science, prohibit sex-education, bust public sector unions, preempt local revenue, and roll back child labor protections. Extremist billionaires like the DeVos family, the Uihlein family, and Kochs – and the front groups they finance like the Foundation for Government Accountability, the Alliance Defending Freedom, American Legislative Exchange Council, and The Heritage Foundation – are just a few of the players in this state-by-state strategy. They are also key authors behind the extreme right-wing federal initiative known as Project 2025.
At every level of government, their goal is a policy regime of economic and political control by enriching themselves with our public dollars while widening racial, gender, and economic disparities via discrimination, indoctrination, censorship, and criminalization.
Organizing Together and Winning for Our Communities
Public schools are the vehicle that anchors our democracy and creates opportunity for all. Across the country, legislators and education advocates are organizing together:
- In North Carolina, students, educators, parents, and legislators stopped voucher expansion legislation.
- In Virginia, a powerhouse of 27,500 education workers unionized in Fairfax County, creating the new Fairfax Education Unions, an alliance between the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers and the Fairfax Education Association.
- In Alabama, advocates and legislators blocked legislation to expand the state’s “Don’t Say LGBTQ+” law. In Florida, 21 of the 22 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were defeated.
- Across the country, community schools are transforming public education. See this report by In The Public Interest for details on 20 case studies.
WATCH: Vermont Rep. Mary-Katherine Stone discusses her advocacy for community schools.
People overwhelmingly support improving public education and oppose vouchers. That’s why privatizers have shifted their focus to values-based arguments, like those around school curricula and parental consent, framing voucher expansion as a “path to halt woke indoctrination” and “escape government-run education.”
Extremists often create fake problems to hide their true agenda. The American Federation of Teachers campaign, Real Solutions for Kids and Communities, is working to ensure educational opportunity for all. Learn more here.
Education is Everything
Education is directly tied to economic and political power, sitting at the intersections of policy making: from budgets and revenue, worker power, and civil rights, to criminalization and democracy. Below are additional resources to consider as we advocate for public education for all:
- Educator Pay In America - 2024 State Data (National Education Association)
- Keep Her Safe: Centering Black Girls in School Safety (National Women's Law Center & Southern Poverty Law Center)
- What is the school-to-prison pipeline, and how do we disrupt it? (Southern Poverty Law Center)
- Freedom To Learn Messaging Guide and Digital Toolkit (We Make The Future)
- Vouchers undermine efforts to provide an excellent public education for all (Economic Policy Institute)
- Accelerating Latino Student Recovery (UnidosUS)
- State Snapshots of Learning Disabilities (National Center for Learning Disabilities)
- Know your religious freedom rights in public school (Americans United for Separation of Church and State)
- Conservatives Go to War — Against Each Other — Over School Vouchers (ProPublica)
- Unmasking “Moms for Liberty” (Media Matters)