If you’re a parent, you may remember the struggle to find good, affordable child care and slots in preschool: waiting lists, eye-watering prices and a gnawing uncertainty about whether you found someplace safe and sound. Finally getting to kindergarten was a relief.

Slowly, and now quickly, public education is fragmenting into something that looks scarily like our dysfunctional child care system. The stress you felt for the first four years could last for 18.

At their best, public schools are a pillar of democracy. They anchor local communities and build common ties among people from different backgrounds. When we learn together as children, we can work together as colleagues and citizens.

Most children today remain in traditional public schools, locally governed and free to attend. But in just the past three years, the number of students using some kind of voucher or government-subsidized education savings account to attend private school has doubled, to 1.2 million. As states implement new ESAs sponsored by President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, that number is sure to grow.

Billions of public dollars are being diverted into private hands even as public schools struggle to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Test scores have declined, and social norms about school attendance........

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