Advocacy Update on House Voucherizing Title I

Original Post from March 23: Today, for the first time in over a decade the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on whether to transform Title I into a voucher program. This vote is based on an amendment offered by Chip Roy (R-TX) to H.R. 5- the Parents Bill of Rights. The amendment would allow Title I to continue going to public schools, or to “follow a child” to any private school or homeschool. The district would keep the funding for remaining public school students. There would be no accountability or strings attached whatsoever for families to use “education savings account vouchers” and spend it on schooling, extracurricular activities, tutoring, etc.

How can you help the AASA Advocacy Team?

• Send an individual email to the LA using the contact information on the AASA App:
• “As a constituent and superintendent of xx, I am writing to urge Representative XX to vote NO on Amdt #19 of H.R. 5 that would transform Title I funding into a private school voucher program by allowing the money to “follow” a child to any private school or homeschool. This proposal undermines Title I’s fundamental purpose of directing resources to public schools with high concentrations of poverty and high-need students. It lacks any accountability for taxpayers on how federal funding is spent outside of the public school system. This amendment would be particularly damaging for rural schools, which already receive less Title I funds and would lose Title I funding to suburban and urban areas with more private schools.
• As the CEO of our school system, I know that fiscal discipline requires making tough choices and given the underfunding of the Title I program, the last thing Congress should do is allow for billions of dollars to be diverted to funding new students in private or homeschool. If you have questions about the impact of the amendment, please reach out to Sasha Pudelski with the School Superintendents Association at spudelski@aasa.org.”

• Think of who you know with ties to your federal officials and send this email to them and ask them to weigh in directly—in particular, think about who can get to Republicans.
• If you need more specific talking points on the amendment, see this google doc.

Thank you for taking time this morning to send this email.

UPDATE MARCH 24, 2023- Thanks to your advocacy efforts, the Roy Amdt (to voucherize Title I) fails by Voice Vote! You can see how House members voted here.