State education policy is constantly shifting throughout the United States. Attempts to inject religious into public schools, redirect taxpayer money to religious schools through voucher schemes, or even allow students to leave school to attend religious classes are pervasive.
Universal School Vouchers
In recent years, a number of states have passed legislation to create universal or “open eligibility” school voucher programs, which allow any student to apply regardless of their family’s income or other factors. These laws greatly undermine the public education system because they often result in unpredictable and excessive costs as well as fraud and abuse.
In states that have passed these laws (shown below in red), many private schools have simply raised their tuition and/or required families that already attend to apply for state funds. In effect, this becomes a subsidy for wealthy families and a publicly funded revenue stream for private and religious schools, at the expense of public schools and the vast majority of students who attend them.
Released Time Laws
A significant number of states have laws which require or allow school districts to provide released time for students to leave school in order to attend private religious education during the school day. Because released time programming detracts from classroom instruction time, these laws can compromise the education of both participating and nonparticipating students. States with released time laws are shown in red.
In addition, several states have laws that allow public school districts to offer academic credit for religious education classes taught off of school grounds and without school oversight. Those states are highlighted with a star. Although these provisions are often connected to released time, there is sometimes no requirement that this religious instruction take place during released time.
These laws may be unconstitutional because they provide a special advantage to religious students; they are difficult to administer in a religiously neutral way; and they may be religiously coercive.
