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Seeing folks wonder about this, and the answer is evangelicals, and for why, you can look to Mike Pence. The long and short of it is that this is an efficient way to bypass separation of church and state and funnel LOTS of money to private investors and religious schools. https://twitter.com/oliviacpaschal/status/1298089329231908865
They will borrow the language of civil rights, but what they do in practice is exacerbate school inequality by giving private charter and private religious schools public money through vouchers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/12/21/a-telling-story-of-school-reform-in-mike-pences-home-state-indiana/
Started under shitbag Purdue president and former Indiana governor, Mitch Daniels, Pence expanded this state program. Lots of this money goes to wealthy families who use religious education as a cover for a desire for segregation. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/01/28/how-mike-pence-expanded-indianas-controversial-voucher-program-when-he-was-governor/
Pence's expansion (supported, not coincidentally by the DeVos family) was a boon for religious schools, and tons of public money was funneled directly to a bunch of wackadoodle Indiana schools that teach stuff like Creationism and Biblical literalists. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/12/mike-pence-voucher-program-religious-schools/
Despite being challenged in courts for Constitutional violations, Indiana's conservative judges found it was legal because *vouchers go to individuals* to spend as they choose and not to religious institutions directly. https://indianapublicmedia.org/stateimpact/2013/03/26/indiana-supreme-court-upholds-school-voucher-law/
Just how much money is going to these schools? So much goddamn money. As recently as this year, Indiana is still trying to recover over $68 million dollars that went to two totally fraudulent virtual schools. This story is wild af, I recommend it. https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2020/02/12/indiana-trying-get-back-millions-shuttered-virtual-schools/4740433002/
So, when you hear the rhetoric of school choice and the importance of getting families out from the "monopoly of public education," this what they're looking for. As they say, the scam is structural.
Also? This was a big point for neoconservatives in the early 00s who wanted to preach family values by saving schools through privatization rhetoric and by pinning the defunding of urban public schools/programs on the left. It was very popular. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/vouchers/interviews/bush.html
[If you want to know why old school Hoosier progressives (hi) harbor particular animus for Mitch Daniels, this is numero uno.] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/how-indianas-school-voucher-program-soared-and-what-it-says-about-education-in-the-trump-era/2016/12/26/13d1d3ec-bc97-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html?utm_term=.508d14b40674&itid=lk_inline_manual_2
