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We won't vouch for this: Stop New Jersey from selling students out to the highest bidder

It's called the Opportunity Scholarship Act, but it's not about opportunity — it's about opportunism.

New Jersey's legislators will consider a bill to give tax breaks to companies that offer students vouchers to private and religious schools.

Our children's futures would be placed in the hands of institutions that are allowed to violate their civil rights, operate under the public radar, and fall short of the standards public schools are required to meet - all while denying New Jersey an important source of revenue.

We need you to guarantee that state funding doesn't support private and religious schools that don't have the same requirements to follow civil rights laws, open government laws, and the standards that all public schools have to abide by.

Take action today:"Vouch" for the First Amendment.

Let your elected officials know today that you can't vouch for teaching students religion with money from the state budget.

It's called the Opportunity Scholarship Act. But it's not about opportunity — it's about opportunism. New Jersey Senate Bill 1872, which creates a school voucher system in the state, will be introduced in the Senate Economic Growth Committee this Thursday, May 13.

Contact your legislators today and tell them that Senate Bill 1872 is bad for public education and bad for the principle of religious freedom. By giving tax breaks to companies that contribute to funding school vouchers, SB1872 takes an end-run around constitutional principles. The result will be the diversion of desperately needed funds from public schools to private and religious schools.

There are also a lot of inconvenient realities about vouchers. Public money does not a public school make.

Private schools are free to turn away students at their discretion, for whatever reason.Since the Open Public Records Act and Open Public Meetings Act do not apply, private schools can operate under the public radar.

They can skirt civil rights laws that protect public school students from discrimination and violations of their First Amendment rights.

And private schools, even under SB1872, don't have to meet the standards that public schools must meet.

These shortcomings notwithstanding, there's still the elephant in the school auditorium: Vouchers don't take care of the vast majority of students who remain in the public school system.