A month ago, May 4, 2025, the Cowley County Democratic Party sponsored a town hall meeting. The legislators representing us in Topeka and Washington either ignored their invitations, or politely declined to attend. However, Senator Cindy Holscher from the State Senate, drove all the way from Kansas City to talk to attendees and answer questions. One major topic was the attempt to funnel taxpayer funds away from Kansas public schools into a voucher system.

Senator Holscher strongly supports our public schools. She pointed out that 90% of Kansas children attend public schools. Diverting funds toward private schools which have no oversight would harm the vast majority of our children, especially those in rural areas. There would be no follow up on the received voucher money. One of her constituents admitted they planned to use their voucher money to buy new furniture for their lake house.

A study indicated that vouchers would lead to a learning loss in Kansas with the economic equivalent of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation.

Though Kansas has thus far managed to deny school vouchers, the question will return in the next session. It’s a continuing battle. Our state agenda mirrors that of the federal Project 2025, Holscher said.

Yesterday in DC, June 3, 2025, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon presented her proposed budget to the Senate Appropriations subcommittee. Kansas Senator Jerry Moran is on that committee. Part of the package was the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) which is an attempt to expand school vouchers nationwide. It is unconscionable for Congress to cut funding for public schools while providing a lucrative tax loophole for the ultra-rich. Reverse Robin Hood, again.

Years ago, when I was an elementary student, the US was involved in the Space Race and the Cold War. Support for public schools was boosted nationwide because we couldn’t afford to let America fall behind. We had to have the best education there was to offer.

Now, “falling behind” seems to be the goal, to withhold resources that would provide excellent education to all our children. The attacks on our schools parallel those on museums, public libraries, public broadcasting, and public radio. Any institution that exists to support learning and literacy has come under intense scrutiny and criticism.

The recently released film “Free For All: The Public Library” sheds light on the history of literacy, books, and learning. The 90-minute documentary is available on PBS. Highly recommended.

Public libraries, even today, are staunchly supportive of literacy. Whereas once libraries were exclusive, after the Revolutionary War, Ben Franklin supported opening libraries to commoners. “If people are to govern themselves, they need to be educated.” To me, that is democracy’s mission.

It took generations for literacy to be offered to everyone, however. Women were limited in what they could read, and they certainly weren’t welcome to write. In the slave-holding south, it was illegal to teach a slave to read. Before the Civil War, “Literacy literally was the line between citizen and slave.”

For a hundred years we made a lot of progress and then, groups such as the Heritage Foundation started whittling away at our public schools. Now many districts limp along. For the last fifty years, there has been an assault on our collective literacy until currently 21% of American adults are illiterate and 54% of us read below a 6^th grade level.

Why? It’s a calculated effort to return us to that time when literacy was the line between those with power and those without. Jess Piper’s column “View From Rural Missouri” explains it this way: “Their goal is to create workers who can be exploited, workers who won’t ask questions or join unions or demand better conditions.”

Project 2025 aims to make us stupid again.

But we see what is happening. We want our schools to excel. We want every child to learn the critical thinking skills that naturally follow reading and writing. “Everyone deserves an education to have a fighting chance against those who would take advantage of them.” (J. Piper 5/29/2025)

Vouchers would weaken our public schools and deprive our children of their future. Please let Jerry Moran know you support public schools and you want him to as well. While you’re at it, let our state legislators know too.