By Drs. Pamela Pugh and Anne Tapp Jaksa
Michigan is being told that the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit is about opportunity.
We have heard that language before.
Again and again, Black communities have been asked to trust education policies packaged as freedom, flexibility, innovation, or rescue, policies that too often leave our neighborhoods with less: fewer stable schools, fewer experienced teachers, fewer counselors, fewer advanced courses, fewer arts programs, and less public accountability.
That is why Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s pending decision about whether Michigan should opt into the Education Freedom Tax Credit matters so much, especially for public schools.
Supporters present the proposal as a way to help families. Under the plan, individuals could receive up to a $1,700 tax credit for contributions to scholarship-granting organizations, which can then fund private school tuition and other eligible educational expenses. Though framed as philanthropy, the proposal would function in practice as a subsidy for private education through the tax code.
For decades, many urban districts and Black communities have borne the fallout of disinvestment, inequitable funding, school closures, and reforms that promised improvement but too often delivered less stability, fewer resources, and fewer opportunities. Vouchers themselves are rooted in segregation. When public systems are weakened, the damage is not abstract. It shows up in overcrowded classrooms, deteriorating facilities, reduced programming, fewer mental health supports, and schools being asked to do more with less. Public schools by law cannot charge tuition, therefore districts would in effect have to start charging for services that are currently included (such as after-school activities and athletics in order to recoup this funding, further widening inequities).
Affluent families often have options no matter what policymakers decide. They can move, pay tuition, or navigate choice systems and transportation issues with greater ease. But many Black families do not experience “choice” in the way it is often described. They remain deeply dependent on the neighborhood public school, the institution still most likely to serve every child, every day.
That is the part these debates too often obscure.
A broad coalition of Michigan school administrators, teachers, school boards, principals, and education advocates has warned that this plan would operate like a voucher system, redirecting resources and attention away from the public schools serving the vast majority of students. The Michigan State Board of Education underscored that concern in a 5–2 vote opposing the state’s opt-in. The resolution also generated significant public response, with 842 people sending 7,850 letters opposing an opt-in within 24 hours.
This debate is also unfolding at a moment when longstanding protections surrounding public education, civil rights, and educational equity are under pressure. The question is not simply whether individual private schools are well-intentioned. It is whether states should subsidize private education through the tax code without requiring participating institutions to meet comparable public obligations for access, academic accountability, transparency, and civil-rights protections that govern public schools.
Support for policies like this does not always follow traditional partisan lines. But political affiliation does not change the underlying policy question: whether public funding should support private schools that do not serve every child. While some Democratic governors and influential philanthropic circles may give this policy a gentler gloss than a traditional voucher fight, political cover does not change the underlying reality: if a policy weakens public accountability and deepens inequity, it is still the wrong choice for Michigan. These debates also intersect with the educator workforce, as instability and policy shifts affect the recruitment and retention of Black and Brown educators in the communities that rely on them most.
That is not a pathway to justice. It is a familiar pattern.
Public schools do not get to choose whom they serve. They carry a legal obligation to educate every child in their community, including students whose needs may be more complex or costly to serve. Public schools educate students with disabilities, multilingual learners, students living in poverty, students experiencing homelessness, and children navigating trauma. They operate within stringent requirements governing curriculum, assessment, financial transparency, student services, and civil rights. Private schools operate under a different set of requirements and are not necessarily subject to the same curriculum, testing, enrollment, transparency, and accountability obligations as public schools. If public dollars are going to support private educational choices, Michigan families deserve to know what public obligations should accompany those dollars.
That matters enormously for Black communities. When public systems are weakened, the burdens are never shared equally. The losses land hardest in the communities already carrying the greatest weight.
Reductions in public resources can force districts into difficult decisions about staffing, programming, and student services, putting arts and music, advanced coursework, career and technical education, and school-based mental health supports at risk. For many Black students, these are not extras. They are the very supports that help keep school meaningful, stabilizing, and connected to a larger future.
Michigan should not pretend this is only a technical tax question. It is a moral one.
Do we respond to inequality by investing more deeply in the public schools that Black families still rely on? Or do we once again call disinvestment “opportunity” and ask the communities already carrying the heaviest burdens to absorb one more experiment?
Black communities in Michigan have seen what happens when policymakers weaken public schools in the name of reform. We have seen closures, underfunding, and instability sold as transformation.
We should not accept another policy that asks us to mistake abandonment for choice.
If Michigan leaders truly want to expand opportunity, they should invest directly in literacy, early childhood education, special education, mental health supports, educator recruitment and retention, and the neighborhood public schools that remain a cornerstone of Black community life. Rather than a federal tax credit that benefits a select few who already attend private school, all students would be better served by fulfilling the 50 year old promise of fully funding IDEA.
We call on Gov. Whitmer to decline to opt Michigan into the Education Freedom Tax Credit and extend gratitude to Jocelyn Benson who has already pledged to opt out of this voucher scheme.
Black families do not need another slogan. They need strong, accountable public schools.
