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Communications Toolkit: Vouchers

Protect School Funding
Want to use your voice to protect school funding? We’ve created messaging guidance and communications tools to get you started!

What's in this toolkit

  • Key talking points
  • Sample social and email copy for your campaign
  • Current actions to share with audiences
  • Shareable social media graphics
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Give Students the Resources They Need for Success

Every student deserves neighborhood public schools that give them a sense of belonging, the opportunity to thrive, and prepare them with the real-world skills they need to follow their dreams. 

But vouchers take scarce funding away from our neighborhood public schools—where 90% of students go—and give it to private schools that are unaccountable to taxpayers.

There is no reliable evidence that voucher programs improve overall student success, and some programs have even been shown to have a negative effect for students receiving a voucher.

Vouchers continue to discriminate against students with disabilities, strip away students’ human and civil rights, and exacerbate racial segregation.

This guide is designed to help you spread the word about the harmful effect of vouchers on public schools. 

Key Talking Points

Instead of sending money to private schools, we should focus on public schools—where 90% of children attend—not take money away from them. We need elected officials to represent all of us and to stop private school vouchers that rob money from our public schools that welcome and educate everyone.
If our elected leaders really want to help every student thrive, they will focus on what’s right for every child’s future: fully funding public schools, reducing class sizes, ending the educator shortage crisis, and stopping the preventable gun violence epidemic in our schools and communities.
Unlike public schools, private schools take tax dollars without saying how the money is spent. They are not required to do financial audits or disclose staff salaries or administrative costs. Nationwide, vouchers have lost millions to waste, fraud, and abuse at private schools, with no guarantee that taxpayer money goes into the classroom.
Politicians created vouchers to keep schools segregated. Vouchers were first created after the Supreme Court banned school segregation through Brown v Board of Education. Today, vouchers still send public funds to private schools that can discriminate against students by picking and choosing who they serve based on race, gender, disability, religion, sexual orientation, and any other number of factors.
There is ZERO reliable evidence that vouchers improve student success. In fact, numerous recent studies show that vouchers consistently lead to drops in student achievement. What conclusive evidence does show is that investing more money in public education improves student achievement.
Vouchers do not give parents real educational choice. Most new voucher users are students already enrolled in private schools that can charge tuition and fees far above the amount provided by a voucher. In other words, vouchers facilitate private school tuition subsidies for well-off families at the taxpayers’ expense.

Sample Campaign Copy

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Social Media Posts

  • Instagram: Vouchers take scarce funding away from already underfunded public schools. Our elected officials should focus on funding our public schools – where 90% of kids go – not take money away from them. Tap the link in our bio to keep vouchers out of {your state}. [Add Graphic from Gallery Below] 

  • Facebook: If our elected leaders want to help every student thrive, they will focus on undoing the damage from decades of underfunding our public schools, ending the educator shortage crisis, hiring enough trained staff to care for students’ physical and mental health, and preventing gun violence in our schools and communities. nea.org/say-no-vouchers 

  • Bluesky/Threads/Other: Politicians who push vouchers siphon scarce funding from the 90% of students attending public schools to give a handout to well-off families whose kids already attend private schools. Tell your lawmakers to vote NO on vouchers. nea.org/say-no-vouchers 

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Hustle Script
  • TYPE: Share a Link Goal 
  • LINK: https://www.nea.org/say-no-vouchers 
  • SCRIPT: Hi <Member Name>, this is <Organizer Name> with <Affiliate Name>. We’re telling elected officials to to reject vouchers that take money away from public schools. Will you join us? Reply STOP to quit. 
  • IF YES: Great! You can add your name and message here: <Link> 
  • IF NO: I understand, <Member Name>. Thanks for your time! 
  • OTHER INFORMATION: Make sure to equip your organizers with FAQs and other commonly needed responses.
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Email

Subject Line: Keep vouchers out of [state]! 

Body:

[First name], 

We all want our public schools to be places where all students can learn or thrive.  

But now anti-public education politicians want to weaken public schools.  

Tell your elected representatives to say NO to voucher schemes and oppose the Educational Choice for Children Act (S. 292/H.R. 817).  

Our public schools—where 90% of students go—have been underfunded for decades, and now certain politicians want to create a $10 billion-a-year tax credit scheme to weaken public schools. 

What’s worse: private schools that take voucher money are not accountable to the public and can discriminate based on gender, sexual orientation, and ability.  

We know what anti-public education politicians are trying to do: help billionaires and corporations evade taxes through donations to donations to "scholarship-granting organizations" (SGOs) while wealthy donors get a taxpayer handout to pay for their kids’ private schools.

Afterall, most vouchers are used by families who were already enrolled in private schools. 

Let’s focus on public schools—not handouts for the wealthy. Tell your lawmakers to vote NO on voucher schemes.  

[Button: Say no to vouchers] 

Our students need strong public schools—not tax breaks for billionaires that weaken public schools. Our communities need strong, fully funded public schools—the schools that welcome and educate everyone.

Let’s make sure our elected officials focus on what works, not what doesn’t. 

In Solidarity, 

_____ 

Vouchers Undermine Public Schools

Graphic that says: "'Them: Let's take funding away from public schools for vouchers.' 'Us: Let's fund our public schools.'"
Graphic that says: "'Them: Let's take funding away from public schools for vouchers.' 'Us: Let's fund our public schools.'"

vouchers take funding away from public schools
vouchers take funding away from public schools

rotating gif - vouchers take money from our schools
rotating gif - vouchers take money from our schools

Graphic that says: "Fact: Private schools that take public funds (i.e. vouchers) are not accountable to the public."
Graphic that says: "Fact: Private schools that take public funds (i.e. vouchers) are not accountable to the public."

Graphic that reads: "Fact: Private schools that take public funds (i.e. vouchers) can discriminate based on disability, religion, and more."
Graphic that reads: "Fact: Private schools that take public funds (i.e. vouchers) can discriminate based on disability, religion, and more."

Graphic that reads: "Fact: Vouchers do not improve student achievement."
Graphic that reads: "Fact: Vouchers do not improve student achievement."

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