Louisiana’s new law requiring all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments is a symbolic gambit in conservatives’ attempt to push their religious views through the public school system.
So it’s fitting that, in the same week that the legislation was signed, CNN published a report on efforts to spend public funds on private, religious and often right-wing schools.
The article contrasts the circumstances of Paradise Valley High School, a public school in Arizona, with Dream City, a well-funded Christian school in the state that is affiliated with activist Charlie Kirk’s organization Turning Point USA and aligned with a church where Donald Trump spoke earlier this month.
I encourage you to read the whole piece, but it zeroes in on one particular feature at the heart of the divergent outcomes: the so-called education savings account program, which CNN describes as “a form of voucher that allows any family to take tax dollars that would have gone to their child’s public education and spend the money instead on private schooling.”
CNN goes on to explain its pitfalls:
A CNN investigation found that the program has cost hundreds of millions of dollars more than anticipated, disproportionately benefited richer areas, and funneled taxpayer funds to unregulated private schools that don’t face the same educational standards and antidiscrimination protections that public schools do. Since Arizona’s expanded program took effect in 2022, according to state data, it has sent nearly $2 million to Dream City and likely sapped millions of dollars from Paradise Valley’s budget.
The article is a disturbing look at how Republicans are working to weaken the public school system and bolster private schools, trying to transfer resources from public schools to a bunch of conservative organizations that support their right-wing ideals.
This is precisely why parents, teachers and education activists were so outraged that Roc Nation, the media company owned by rap mogul Jay-Z (aka Shawn Carter), announced plans to promote a school privatization program in Philadelphia that would spend public funds on private school vouchers. Those plans are supported by far-right, Trump-supporting billionaire Jeff Yass (pictured with Carter at a ritzy event here).
Yass is a major investor in TikTok who is also a major proponent of the school privatization agenda. He’s named in the CNN article, alongside Trump-era Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Jimmy Haslam (the Trump-supporting owner of the Cleveland Browns), as the uber-wealthy supporters behind the push to funnel funds to private (often far-right) Christian schools.
This effort to infuse American education with Christianity may not be as obvious to the public as placing the Ten Commandments in classrooms. But it’s arguably far more effective and enduring.