Governor Larry Rhoden is signing on to King Don’s private-school voucher plan:
Rhoden made the announcement on Friday at Saint Joseph Academy in Sioux Falls, touting the move as a way to expand school choice options for families across the state.
“Regardless of where they receive their education, my goal as governor is to support innovation, not to stand in the way. So, we will continue to champion policies to expand freedom and learning for our students,” Rhoden said.
While public school students could receive some of these benefits, this program is designed to help students attending private, classical, micro-schools, or homeschool students. People can donate to scholarship-granting organizations that must be approved by the governor’s office.
The bill includes a permanent, uncapped dollar-for-dollar tax credit program for individuals who donate up to $1,700 annually to support private school tuition, and select expenses for public school students. To be eligible for these tax credits, individuals must donate to scholarship-granting organizations [Cooper Seamer, “Rhoden Says State Will Opt in to Federal Education Tax Credit Program,” KSFY, 2025.11.14].
South Dakota already diverts some of its tax dollars to private religious schools via its stealth voucher program, giving insurance companies tax breaks to pay for scholarships to private schools. Opting in to the federal stealth voucher program takes no more money away from South Dakota’s general fund and the free, fair, and universal public K-12 schools it is supposed to fund, but it does divert federal dollars that Uncle Sam could use to bolster federal funding for special education and other public school programs into the pockets of religious schools that are free to cherry-pick easy-to-educate students for their theocratic indoctrination.
Public education may still get a slice of this ugly pie:
But Rob Monson, executive director for the School Administrators of South Dakota, said the program will benefit public and private education. South Dakotans can direct their tax credit dollars to organizations representing public schools in the state. The funding could be spent on not only tuition and fees for private schools, but tutoring, special needs services for students with disabilities, transportation (such as busing), afterschool care and computers [Makenzie Huber, “SD Opts into Trump’s Education Tax Credit Program,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2025.11.14].
Donating to organizations supporting supplemental services in public schools, which are more efficient than private schools, will do more good than writing checks to subsidize tuition for kids who were probably going to private school anyway. Besides, vouchers appear to drive tuition inflation.
Secretary of Education Joe Graves keeps trying to graft the conservative capitalist dogma of competition onto the discipline he’s supposed to be promoting:
Education Secretary Joseph Graves said the state needs a “more competitive system” to help improve educational outcomes, and this will spur growth in alternative education.
“If we can have a more robust, competitive system in education, that always improves things. So, in any field of endeavor, where there’s competition, the quality improves,” Graves said [Seamer, 2025.11.14].
…even though we’ve had evidence for years that subsidizing private schools with vouchers does not improve student achievement.
Rather than diverting public dollars to exclusive private schools that don’t live up to the promises Graves and other privatizers make, we should be increasing our investment in the public schools that are required by law and democratic good sense to serve all students.
This country has gone mad. Without consistent education we’re screwed.
Well Joe loves Religious instruction. For instance the Catholics have recently determined that the virgin Mary must be demoted. You can’t educate the little girls to believe their equals to the little boys. They can’t believe that they can be anything they want to be.
So now their approaching the Southern Baptists who know how to keep women silent and in their place. Isn’t religion a wonderful thing to learn. It keeps you in your place. Blacks know their place, separate but equal. Native Americans, a lost cause, the religious schools tried and tried. They buried those kids with religious ceremonies and still the tribes wanted their kids back. Who knows?
Non-profit private schools are an anomaly. I believe Joseph said competition improves quality. Wait until those kids apply for college. Graves is digging one for South Dakota. A true flat earth society for all of you.
Tangentially related: the private sector doesn’t build important spaceships more cheaply, either:
Bake a man a pie and he’ll learn to divide by seven but teach a man piety and he’ll crucify the apples then say they died for his sins.
How do these religious erosions stand under our state’s constitution?
Although the Christian Nationalist Supreme Court has ruled that religious schools cannot be excluded from programs that aid private schools (a MASSIVE erosion of the separation of church and state at a most volatile stage of human development and a slap in the face to SD ‘s Constitution Article 8), our Constitution goes on in section 16 to say: “. . . and no sectarian instruction shall be allowed in any school or institution aided or supported by the state. “
So your church school can get the money through SC rulings, BUT once you get the money, your school is barred from teaching religion.
The overgodders must not get any public funding. Or grudznick should get big money for my church, and you all will be welcome for pie and tater hot dishes.
Do you want us to bring Kuchen or kolace Grunz?
Both. Bring both. And the kuchens should be of the prune and peach variety, Mr. Kloucek.
If the Governor plans to urge the Legislature to use public funds for private schools, does he also plan to promote legislation which would require instructional staff and administrative staff to be certified and properly qualified with a minimum of a four year degree and state certification? I would think parents of children attending any private institution would require such; after all, price is not all when it comes to South Dakota’s children.