Don’t Be Fooled by Claims That Tax-Credit Scholarships Can Help Public Education (Opinion) – Education Week

October 27, 2026

Don’t Be Fooled by Claims That Tax-Credit Scholarships Can Help Public Education

The latest federal school choice scheme is a Trojan horse

By Miguel Cardona & Robert Kim — October 23, 2026 5 min read

Collage-style illustration of tall vertical clippings of green lockers, a school bus and a wooden desk, all split apart. In between the images are clippings of text from the IRS webpage that has information about the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit. — Illustration by Emily Wright for Education Week + Getty

By Miguel Cardona & Robert Kim – Miguel Cardona served as the 12th U.S. Secretary of Education and is now the president of Cardona Solutions, an education consulting firm. Robert Kim is the executive director of Education Law Center, a national legal organization that advocates for education equity and justice.

As a former U.S. secretary of education and the director of a national education-focused nonprofit organization, we believe in the value of our nation’s public schools and the promise those schools make to educate future generations.

That promise is being broken by the current administration as it pursues its aim to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, holds back federal funding for public education, challenges state and local laws and policies that protect vulnerable students, and attempts to privatize education.

That last category of attacks includes the new federal tax-credit scholarship program, which was signed into law in 2025 and takes effect on Jan. 1, 2027.

Let’s be clear: This program is a voucher program whose primary function is to enable public funds to be used to pay for private school tuition and expenses. The only difference between vouchers and the scholarship program is the label and the mechanism.

In the next few months, and on an annual basis thereafter, each state will need to decide whether to opt in to the federal program. We urge all governors and state leaders to steer clear of this dangerous federal scheme, which is nothing more than a Trojan horse that will gut public schools under the guise of a gift.

On Oct. 1, the long-awaited proposed regulations for the program were released by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. There is absolutely nothing in these regulations that makes this voucher scheme a net positive for public education.

Much has been written about how public schools and students can supposedly benefit from the program. But the measly sum that may reach public school students is certainly not worth pushing private education voucher programs into states that don’t currently have them. That’s especially true when study after study has shown that previous voucher programs divert money from public schools, increase student segregation, negatively impact academic outcomes, strip students and families of civil rights protections , and promote waste, fraud, and abuse .

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