Trump’s school tax credit could hurt schools in Michigan and elsewhere

Filed 18h ago · Via Michigan Advance · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Mikybibi · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Michigan has not yet opted into the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit, which offers donors up to $1,700 in federal tax credits for contributions funding private-school scholarships, and Governor Whitmer has not signaled a decision. The Joint Committee on Taxation projects the program will cost roughly $26 billion in federal revenue over ten years, with no annual cap after Congress removed one.

Meanwhile Michigan public school enrollment has fallen 20% since 2002-03, with two-thirds of districts losing students in 2025-26, straining a per-pupil funding model that can't quickly shed fixed costs. Participating private schools face none of the accreditation, background-check or testing requirements imposed on public schools, even as third-grade reading proficiency has slipped to 38.2%.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Nobody's against parents wanting good schools for their kids, that's not the argument here. The trouble is handing out tax credits to schools that get to pick their students while the schools that can't turn anyone away are running on fumes and one-year budget patches. That's not choice, that's just moving the deck chairs and calling it a renovation.

Source: Read the original at Michigan Advance → Scored: Comic Plodding · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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