Teachers Unions Blast Trump Plan to 'Steal Money' From Public Schools for Vouchers

Leaders of the nation's two largest teachers unions on Wednesday sharply criticized U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order that would direct federal funding toward enabling families to send their children to private rather than public K-12 schools.

Before the White House released the order Wednesday evening, multiple media outlets obtained and reported on related documents and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Fox News that Trump intended to sign that order and others.

In response to reporting on Trump's order promoting "school choice," as right-wing advocates call it, the National Education Association (NEA)—the largest U.S. teachers union, representing over 3 million workers— released a statement lambasting the president's plan to "steal money from public school students to fund private school vouchers."

NEA president Becky Pringle declared that "every student deserves fully funded neighborhood public schools that give them a sense of belonging and prepare them with the lessons and life skills they need to follow their dreams and reach their full potential. Instead of stealing taxpayer money to fund private schools, we should focus on public schools—where 90% of children, and 95% of children with disabilities, in America, attend—not take desperately needed funds away from them. If we are serious about doing what is best for students, let's reduce class sizes to give our students more one-on-one attention and increase salaries to address the teacher and staff shortages."

"The bottom line is vouchers have been a catastrophic failure everywhere they have been tried," she continued. "President Trump is using his Project 2025 playbook to privatize education because he knows vouchers have repeatedly been a failure in Congress. Parents, educators, and voters know what students need—and vouchers are never the solution. In fact, when voters have a say about vouchers, they have been soundly rejected—time and again—at the ballot box. Just this past November, voters in Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska overwhelmingly said no to vouchers."

"We know vouchers take money away from neighborhood public schools. We know students with disabilities depend on these same public schools. We know that voucher programs leave out wide swaths of students, especially Black and brown students as well as those living in rural areas with no or limited access to private schools. And we know this stunt is meaningless without the consent of Congress," she said. "So, we are putting all anti-public education politicians on notice: If you try to come for our students, for our schools, and for our communities, NEA members will mobilize and will defeat vouchers again."

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which has 1.8 million members, similarly stressed that "Americans of all political stripes want safe and welcoming public schools where kids are engaged and have the knowledge and skills to thrive in careers, college, and life. This plan is a direct attack on all that parents and families hold dear; it's a ham-fisted, recycled, and likely illegal scheme to diminish choice and deny classrooms resources to pay for tax cuts for billionaires."

"We already know that vouchers go mostly to wealthy families whose kids are already in private school. This order hijacks federal money used to level the playing field for poor and disadvantaged kids and hands it directly to unaccountable private operators—a tax cut for the rich," she explained. "It diminishes community schools and the services they provide. It dilutes crucial literacy and arts education grants. It takes an ax to the Department of Defense schools that are a global model for student success. It weakens Bureau of Indian Education schools already struggling due to underfunding and neglect."

Specifically, according to CBS News, "the executive order directs the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, to submit a plan to Mr. Trump for how military families can use Defense Department funds to send their kids to the school of their choosing."

"More broadly, it directs the Department of Education to prioritize school choice programs through its discretionary grant programs, and orders the Department of Health and Human Services to issue guidance on how states receiving block grants for families and children can use those funds to support private and faith-based institutions," the outlet reported.

CBS added:

The executive order also directs the Department of Education to issue guidance to states on how to use federal funding formulas—which determine how much money to allocate to districts and schools—to support their K-12 scholarship programs.

The interior secretary, when confirmed, must also submit a plan to the president outlining how families with students at Bureau of Indian Education schools can use federal money to send those children to a school of their family's choosing. About 47,000 American Indian and Alaska Native students are enrolled in Bureau of Indian Education schools.

Like Pringle, Weingarten highlighted that "voters overwhelmingly rejected billionaire-backed voucher scams in November—even in states Trump won—because they know vouchers hurt student achievement, bankrupt state budgets, and deny opportunity to rural and urban communities."

"They spurned extremist school board candidates and opted again and again for levies and ballot initiatives to improve public schools," she said. "While this order will succeed in uniting parents and educators in a righteous effort to defend public schools, it is unfortunate that we have to spend time fighting for—rather than strengthening—the institutions 90% of American kids attend."

The union leaders' comments came just hours after the National Assessment of Educational Progress released data on student performance in mathematics and reading for 2024—which Weingarten responded to by saying: "We don't need stagnant NAEP scores to show us the headwinds children are facing, regardless of whether they attend public or private school. Rather than waiting for lagging indicators such as NAEP, AFT members are fighting every day for 'real solutions' to create safe, welcoming, and joyful schools that engage kids and close the achievement gap between the lowest and highest performers."

Trump's order and the related backlash also came after the president said on his Truth Social platform Tuesday afternoon: "Congratulations to Tennessee Legislators who are working hard to pass School Choice this week, which I totally support. We will very soon be sending Education BACK TO THE STATES, where it belongs. It is our goal to bring Education in the United States to the highest level, one that it has never attained before. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

Trump has repeatedly teased fully dismantling the federal Department of Education, but he has also nominated its potential next leader: scandal-plagued former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon. She still needs to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, which is narrowly controlled by Republicans.

In addition to the measure that will shift money toward private schools, Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order "eliminating federal funding or support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology," and "protecting parental rights."

As LawDork's Chris Geidner summarized, the latter measure "attempts to restrict all schools that receive federal funds from protecting trans and nonbinary students or supporting diversity measures, while at the same time purporting to advance 'patriotic education.'"