Redirects Public Education Funds to Private Religious Schools

Executive Order 14191: Redirecting Public Schools Funds to Private Religious Education and Proselytizing

Official Title: Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families 
Date Signed: January 29, 2025

Key Provisions:

• Directs the Secretary of Education to issue guidance within 90 days on how the federal government can use discretionary grant funding to support K-12 educational choice initiatives.
• Aims to support families who choose “private and faith-based options”

Threats to Religious Freedom:

• Private school voucher policies undermine our nation’s public schools by redirecting taxpayer dollars to unaccountable private and religious schools, which only educate a select few.
• Although families are free to send children to the schools of their choosing, this private school voucher scheme violates the religious freedom of every taxpayer by compelling everyone to fund the private religious education of only some individuals.
• Religious education is best left to houses of worship and private institutions that are funded with voluntary contributions, free from federal funding and state entanglement. Such an approach preserves funding for public education and ensures that religious institutions can educate students free from excessive government entanglement with religion.
• Our public education system is the only one which guarantees every student’s civil rights and religious freedom, since private and religious schools are exempt from some nondiscrimination requirements.
• This order and similar efforts to expand private school voucher programs run counter to the federal government’s responsibility to serve the American people, and it violates the principle that public schools are a public good which must provide equal access to educational opportunities for all students, regardless of their religion or background.