A federal tax-credit program that was included in the massive so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress at the urging of the president will allow taxpayers to donate $1,700 each year to organizations that can go to secular and religious private schools, and to homeschoolers. When we take away the lipstick the administration puts on this pig of a program it turns out to be a back door scheme to introduce vouchers to the states, to rob the public schools of desperately needed funds and give them to private and religious schools. 

Our public schools, already starving for funding, will have even less to work with, pushing more families away from public education and towards a history curricula governed by ideology rather than actual history, and by an agenda that privileges some over others.  Many of the religious school curricula are built around a Christian nationalist view of the world that whitewash the legacy of slavery, that glorify and emphasize the role of the Christian god in the history of the United States, and that tells Christians, quoting from an Abeka (Christian nationalist) text, that “the Bible” is God’s perfect word. We can always trust what the Bible says about science and must reject any scientific ideas that contradict  the Bible. Private and religious schools have the legal right to teach what they will, but our public dollars should not be taken from our public schools to pay for miseducation of our children by teaching religious doctrine.

One of the key aspects of this program is that the governor of each state can decide whether to opt in to the program or not. Many Democratic governors have said no; many Republican governors have said yes. True to form, Gov. Maura Healey has not made public her decision to opt in or not. I am encouraging people to flood her inbox with emails saying NO, do not sell out public education by agreeing to participate in this program. 

You can find the form to write to Gov. Healey at https://www.mass.gov/info-details/email-the-governors-office. Please share with others and write today.

Doug Selwyn

Greenfield