Will the Colorado teachers’ union be so spiteful toward private education options that they will deny Colorado families money from privately funded scholarships promoted by federal tax credits? We soon will find out.

I first learned of the program in question when the Colorado Sun published Jay Stooksberry’s op-ed on the matter on August 19. As Stooksberry explains, buried within the One Big Beautiful Bill was the Education Choice for Children Act, which allows individuals to “make tax-deductible donations up to $1,700 to scholarship organizations.” Before a state’s families can take advantage, Stooksberry adds, the governor must opt in and “approve a list of qualifying scholarship organizations the year before the donations can flow.” Polis said he was “excited” by the program.

Teachers’ union strikes back

But seeing this new hope for Colorado families seeking a better education, the teachers’ union soon struck back. As Chalkbeat reported, a letter from Great Education Colorado urged Polis to reject the plan. “The list of organizations calling on Polis to reject the plan include[s] the Colorado Education Association, Colorado Fiscal Institute, Colorado PTA, Movimiento Poder, and The Bell Policy Center,” Chalkbeat reported.

The case made by the teachers’ union and its allies is, bluntly, stupid, dishonest bullshit.

Here is the key bit from an online petition: “We urge Governor Polis and our candidates for Governor to commit to opt out of this program. . . . Colorado voters do not want vouchers; we want well-resourced, fully funded public schools. We have spoken out strongly against school vouchers each of the three times they were presented to us on the ballot, including just last year when we rejected Amendment 80. For this reason–respect for the voters choice–our state leaders should refuse to opt into the federal tax credit voucher program. All voucher programs harm students and undermine public education. . . .Voucher programs . . . move public funds to private education.”

The error here is to conflate state-funded vouchers with privately funded scholarships under federal tax policy. Obviously there is a huge difference!

We are not talking about taking dollars raised by Colorado government for education (or anything else) and redirecting that money to vouchers. We are talking about individuals choosing to redirect a portion of their federal tax burden to private scholarships. That money would not otherwise go to education. The funds are available to public-school students too for supplementary help, and the money is on top of current funding for public schools. The program will be in effect whether or not Colorado chooses to participate. The question is, will Colorado children get their portion of the funds, or will we watch all the available money flow to other states?

Opting out would be insane. So of course the teachers’ union and its allies want Colorado to opt out. They would punish Colorado children to make a political statement against private education options.

Let’s return to the claim that Colorado voters have thrice (or maybe four times?) rejected vouchers and related measures. Last year, voters rejected Amendment 80, which I opposed because of its bad wording and which didn’t even explicitly mention vouchers. In 2021, voters rejected Proposition 119, which would have raised marijuana taxes to fund private tutoring. In 1998, voters rejected Amendment 17, which would have established “an income tax credit for parents or legal guardians of children enrolled in public, non-public schools and non-public home-based education programs.” And in 1992, voters rejected Amendment 7, which would have created a state-funded voucher program.

Again, none of those programs is remotely like the federal tax-credit program for privately funded scholarships.

Politics 101

Democrats and teacher union reps reasonably can critique the federal program so long as they don’t try to stop Colorado kids from participating. For example, they could say that all the money directed to private vouchers under the federal program should instead go to public schools.

They could worry that the private scholarship program is a camel’s nose in the tent that could lead to state-funded vouchers. But, as the wise former legislator Ken Gordon once told me, it’s foolish to reject a proposal on the table that does something good just because it theoretically might inspire some other proposal down the road that you don’t like. The slope just ain’t that slippery from private scholarships under federal tax credits to state-funded vouchers.

Or Democrats could worry, as Erica Meltzer at Chalkbeat suggests, that the funded programs couldn’t be restricted, say, to low-income families or groups that welcome LGBTQ students.

I have other concerns with the program. Let’s go back to that “list of qualifying scholarship organizations” that Stooksberry talks about. I’ve been calling these private scholarships, and mostly they are, but, when the federal government is promoting the funding through tax credits and approving the list of recipients, that feels like pretty heavy government for my libertarian tastes. I’ve always been nervous about government intervention in education and about using the tax code to change incentives. My family homeschools, so why can’t we just use our own money under the tax credits to fund our own homeschool expenses, without any bureaucratic nonsense?

I think the federal government would do better to just lower taxes and spending instead, or use the money to pay down the nation’s $38 trillion of debt. I think states should set education policy and the federal government mostly should butt out.

So if you want to criticize the federal proposal, be my guest. But if you want to deny Colorado children the benefits of the program just to score political points, then you need to go back to school yourself for a refresher course on Politics 101, not to mention basic ethics.

Ari Armstrong writes regularly for Complete Colorado and is the author of books about Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, and classical liberalism. He can be reached at ari at ariarmstrong dot com.