Five reasons vouchers are wrong for Idaho

Pro-voucher groups often refer to voucher programs as "parental choice". Arguing that parents should decide how the education funding that taxpayers provide should be spent for their specific child. 

​

In reality, however, voucher programs do not provide most parents with more choices. 

​

​In states that have adopted voucher programs, private school tuition has gone up so much that only wealthy families can afford it even with taxpayer-funded vouchers. (For example, Iowa and Arizona.) 

​

​And many rural areas in Idaho do not have many private schools so a voucher program won't be useful to them even though their tax dollars may be used to subsidize voucher programs in other areas of the state.

 

In some areas "pop-up" education providers have started schools that cost the voucher amount, but many of them have failed within four years.

 ​​

As a result, voucher programs trap working and rural families in increasingly underfunded public schools.​​