MAREE’s Statement on the Federal Voucher Tax Credit

Maryland’s Commitment to Public Education Should Not Be
Undermined by Vouchers

MAREE’s statement on the federal voucher tax credit

Public schools are the bedrock of our communities and our democracy. MAREE has always fought for all students, particularly Black and Brown students, to receive equitable access to a high-quality public education. We believe that education is a public good, and that public funds should flow solely to public programs that are open to all. It is because of this that we stand in firm opposition to all forms of private school vouchers. Private school vouchers lack proper accountability, exacerbate inequality, allow for schools to engage in exclusionary practices, fragment communities, increase segregation and decrease academic achievement. 

The federal voucher tax credit, recently created by Congress and signed into law with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is a private school voucher program that creates a tax shelter for the wealthy while harming Maryland’s students. This federal program will only further increase inequalities in our public education system by allowing private schools to handpick their students and leave underserved populations — like students with disabilities, students with disciplinary histories, multilingual learners, students from low-income backgrounds and those with low test scores — behind. MAREE recognizes school voucher programs as yet another strategy in our nation’s long history of creating separate and unequal schools by encouraging those with the wealth, knowledge, and resources to abandon the public school system at the expense of students, schools and taxpayers. 

While we acknowledge that many Black and Brown families remain woefully underserved by Maryland’s public schools, and understand why families would look toward alternative options, we reject the notion that the solution is to embrace a school voucher system that further exacerbates educational inequities and does not increase academic outcomes for our students. 

At a time when Maryland has continued to reaffirm its commitment to public education by investing in the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, we should not undermine this investment by funneling money away from the public schools that serve the majority of our students and into private schools for the wealthy and well-connected. The federal voucher tax credit is yet another attempt by the Trump administration to further dismantle our public education system. MAREE urges Governor Moore to refuse to enroll in this new federal voucher program and to instead continue investing in the public schools that make our state strong.