West Michigan Policy Forum is pushing for Michigan to adopt the federal government’s school voucher program, what they call school choice

The West Michigan Policy Forum was created as a project of the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce in 2008. Their whole objective is to get Michigan legislators to adopt policies that fit their Neo-liberal agenda, like ending the business tax, eliminating real retirement benefits, opposing livable wage standards, opposing the shut down of Line 5 and adopting education policies that support charter and private schools.

In a recent Facebook post, Chase Bolger, the President and CEO of the West Michigan Policy Forum made a pitch for Michigan to opt in to the federal government’s education voucher program called the Education Tax Freedom Credit.

The Trump Administration says:

“If your governor opts in, your family may be eligible to benefit from this transformative program and could use these resources to send your child to a new school, pay for private tutoring, or provide other educational support.:

The America First Policy Institute, which was created in 2020 by former Trump administration officials and has ties to the Council for National Policy, a right wing group that has been around since the 1970s and has been supported by the DeVos family for decades. This is what the America First Policy Institute says about the Education Freedom Tax Credit:

The education freedom tax credit (EFTC) allows taxpayers to claim up to $1,700 in dollar-for-dollar federal tax credits for contributions to Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs). These SGOs can then fund scholarships to students, which can be used for a range of K-12 educational expenses, including private school tuition and homeschooling. 

Then there is the Koch brothers created American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which also is promoting the federal school voucher plan, stating:

The Education Freedom Tax-Credit Scholarship Program is a generational opportunity for every state. States that have opted in are prioritizing parents and students over systems of education while unlocking tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars in potential annual scholarship funds at no cost to the state. Opting in to this program is the easiest and most commonsense step a state can take toward unlocking more learning options for students and families.

While she was Secretary of Education under the first Trump Administration, Betsy DeVos also pushed for a federal policy that was similar to the Education Freedom Tax Credit. DeVos called it Education Freedom Scholarships. In 2019, I wrote:

According to DeVos, “The policy will make a historic investment in America’s students, injecting up to $5 billion yearly into locally controlled scholarship programs that empower students to choose the learning environment and style that best meets their unique needs.”

The Michigan Education Association (MEA) had a much different take on the so-called Education Freedom Tax Credit. They wrote, “The nation’s first federal school voucher scheme was tucked inside the tax cuts and spending plan that Republicans in Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed into law.”

The MEA also states, “The evidence is overwhelming in states where universal vouchers have been enacted:

• Vouchers drain funds from public schools, harm student achievement, and lack any oversight or accountability.
• By a 3-to-1 margin, tax credits and vouchers go to wealthy families whose children already attend private schools.
• Rural schools face the biggest pressures from vouchers because they generate less local revenue and rely more on state and federal funds.

For those who are concerned about the future of Public Education in Michigan, it is imperative that we come to terms with the influence that groups like the West Michigan Policy Forum have on public education policy. What I find interesting, and alarming, is that teacher unions, Democrats, School Boards, parent groups and community-based organizations rarely even mention groups like the West Michigan Policy Forum. It is my contention that not only should they be monitoring what the WMPF is doing, they should develop clear strategies for countering their policy agenda.