Separate but equal is inherently unequal. No amount of mental gymnastics or rationalization will change this fact. Diverting public funds to selective private schools undermines the level playing field Brown vs. Board of Education established over 70 years ago. Idaho’s voucher scheme leads us down a road that will not rewrite history, but it will repeat it.

The competing systems now sponsored by legislators and educational privateers and funded by taxpayers are ushering a return to inequality. This became clear in a conversation I had with the director of a private school here in Pocatello. When I asked about English language learners, neurodivergent learners, and students from low socioeconomic households, I was told that there are already so many other students wanting to go to this school that this administrator did not have to worry about “those kinds” of students. The unsaid message was that this private school does not consider students or families who don’t fit their ideal.

This selective approach to enrollment is promoting a stratified system: a higher-tier, exclusive education for some, and a diminished public system for the rest. Look no further than the $50 million that was set aside last year by the legislature for private schools while $3 million for special needs students was rejected. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer in this very non-uniform system. This mirrors the very inequality Brown sought to eliminate. While not overtly racial, the segregation driven by vouchers creates parallel systems of education based on class, access, and privilege. Separate is still not equal.

Public schools aren’t perfect—but they are democratic institutions. They are where kids of all races, classes, abilities, and backgrounds sit side by side, learning not just algebra and grammar, but citizenship, coexistence, and shared responsibility. Public schools teach us not only how to succeed individually, but how to live together.

Contrast that with a “choice” system where families are now paid with taxpayer money to flee their neighborhood schools in search of other options for their child—as if education were a race, not a right. This doesn’t foster excellence. It fosters abandonment—leaving behind schools (and students) that are “too poor,” “too special needs,” or simply “not worth investing in.”

As one legislator asked last year, why are we investing in special needs students if they are not learning at the same pace as gen. ed. kids? It is because we should be promoting an educational system that gives opportunities to every child. These are all our children, and it takes a village to raise them together.

The history of Brown v. Board of Education reminds us that equality in education requires more than just removing barriers; it requires actively dismantling systems that entrench disparity. Idaho must reject the voucher scheme and recommit to strengthening its public schools — for all children, not just those who fit an ideal.