The new administration’s attack on public education has begun, and we need to take action to stop it.
In late January, HR 610 was introduced by Steve King of Iowa, with representatives from Maryland, Texas, and Arizona signing on.
HR 610, the School Choice Act, will eliminate the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which was passed as a part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty”. Federal funds that are now given to schools will be given to parents who choose to enroll their children in private schools or to homeschool their children. Doing that will give upper middle class parents who can afford private schools for their kids help in paying the steep tuition of private schools and will leave public schools minus adequate funds to provide for the education of the children remaining in them.
HR 610 will give taxpayer money to parents to send their children to religious schools. That is a main intent of the bill. Children will be given vouchers to attend religious schools like the one that Donald Trump praised when he visited it. You can watch this video of the children at that school pledging allegiance to The Bible.
HR 610 will also roll back nutritional standards for free lunches for poor children.
With HR 610, the opportunity gap between the haves and the have-nots will widen in our nation. Education as the great equalizer will cease to exist.
Please contact your Member of Congress and object to HR 610.
It is clear that bills like HR 610 will be supported by both the U.S. Department of Education and the White House. The Trump administration favors alternatives to democratically controlled public schools. The Trump administration has an unmistakable bias against public schools.
Yet the fate of the nation rests on making sure that we have quality public schools for all children.
Defeat HR 610.
Real Learning CT 
OMG. It is total disaster — across the board It was nice to have a break from it. We knew a little but were not consumed. We were totally wrapped up in Cuba but talked a bunch with other tour members and then we would stop!
Sharon Sent from my iPhone
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I found this page via Twitter and I’m so glad I did. This was so helpful. I hope you don’t mind, but I used the information you gave here to fax my congressman. I had talked to him before about this, but your information is fantastic. Living in a poorer state, we need our public schools to be strong, and I emphasized that in my fax to my congressman. So thank you so much. And keep up the fight.
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I am so glad that you found this post to be useful and sent it to your Member of Congress. What state do you live I ? I live in CT, the state with the largest gap in how we educate our wealthy kids and our poor kids. Shame on us.
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