The One Big Beautiful Bill Act tucked a $1,700 tax credit for private-school scholarships into law, and the teachers unions are screaming like someone stole their wallet — because someone finally did.
The provision offers a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for contributions to Scholarship Granting Organizations, money parents can put toward private tuition and educational expenses. States have to opt in. So far, 28 have. Twenty-five are red. Three — Colorado, New Hampshire, Virginia — are blue. That partisan split tells you everything about who holds the leash on the Democratic Party.
The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association published an open letter urging Democratic governors to "say no to the Trump private voucher scheme." Their argument: "Public education ... is the foundation of a thriving democracy," and vouchers betray it. So now parental choice is un-American. The same unions that locked children out of classrooms for a year over COVID are wrapping themselves in the flag.
Follow the money. A May 2026 study by the Network Contagion Research Institute and the Gevura Fund found that combined NEA spending on political activities, lobbying, and outside organizations totaled roughly $175 million in FY2025 — nearly four times the $45 million spent on direct member representation. Ninety percent of NEA candidate-directed spending and nearly all of AFT's has gone to Democrats for decades. These are not professional organizations negotiating contracts. These are partisan operations that happen to employ teachers.
The results of the system they defend are damning. The Programme for International Student Assessment tests 15-year-olds across 80 countries. The United States ranks 18th — behind Poland, Czechia, and Denmark. Singapore sits first. According to the World Bank, Singapore spends 2.2 percent of GDP on education. The United States spends 5.8 percent. We outspend the OECD average of 4.7 percent and the per-student average of $15,022 by dropping $20,387 per child. More money, worse results.
The Cato Institute tracked inflation-adjusted per-student spending from 1971 to 2019: up 140 percent. Math and reading scores for 17-year-olds over the same period? Flat. The union product costs more every year and delivers the same output. In any other industry, that is called failure. In public education, it is called a funding shortfall.
Arkansas Online carried Star Parker's column laying out the case; Bloomberg Tax News, covering an unrelated FCRA tax ruling the same day, had nothing on the school choice fight. The institutional press treats parental liberation as a niche story. The unions count on that silence.
The tax credit does not dismantle public schools. It gives families an exit from a monopoly that has already failed them. The unions are not fighting for children. They are fighting for the pipeline — from your paycheck, through the dues, into Democratic campaign coffers. School choice breaks that pipeline. That is the emergency, not test scores.
Twenty-eight states opted in before the program even launches. The question is whether the remaining governors answer to parents or to the people who fund their campaigns.
