Trump Calls Private School Vouchers Biggest Civil Rights Issue

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump declared that giving children vouchers to attend private schools instead of public institutions, a longtime aspiration of conservatives, would be the nation’s most important civil rights measure.

“We’re fighting for school choice, which really is the civil rights of all time in this country, frankly,” Trump said during remarks in the White House Rose Garden on an executive order to curb police brutality. “School choice is the civil rights statement of the year, of the decade and probably beyond because all children have to have access to quality education.”

Democrats largely oppose what Republicans call “school choice,” arguing it would deprive public school systems of needed resources and is intended to eventually supplant them with private and religious schools.

Before the remarks, Trump said he met with families of Black people killed in confrontations with police and in other violent episodes, including the family of Ahmaud Arbery, who was allegedly murdered earlier this year by two armed white men in Georgia while jogging.

Trump called on Congress to fund 1 million vouchers for public-school students to attend private schools in his State of the Union speech in February, saying “no parent should be forced to send their child to a failing government school.”

Democrats who lead the House of Representatives have made no move to fund the program, and were outraged when Education Secretary Betsy Devos directed money from a coronavirus relief package to private schools earlier this year, according to the Washington Post.

Republicans regard “school choice” as an issue that can peel away some Black voters, after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis won election in 2018 with the support of about 18% of Black women in the state, according to a CNN exit poll.

Advocates for private school vouchers say Republican support for a Florida program that provides scholarships for low-income minority children to attend private schools has created a population of “school choice moms” in the Black community.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.