LINCOLN — Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen and U.S. Reps. Adrian Smith and Mike Flood took a political victory lap Monday with a group of K-12 students at the capital city’s St. Teresa Catholic School.

The group marked the day Pillen opted Nebraska into a federal school choice tax credit program that both GOP members of Congress helped make sure was included in President Donald Trump’s tax and budget bill that passed earlier this summer.

Nebraska is one of the first states nationally to join the federal voucher program, and other states are likely to follow suit.

“Let me just make it really clear … I am not opting this in … I am cannonballing it into the state of Nebraska,” Pillen said to claps from kids and parents.

Pillen and other supporters of school choice in Nebraska needed the assistance of the Trump administration after the state’s voters overturned legislative efforts to create a voucher program of the state’s own. Pillen and state lawmakers have pledged to keep trying to pass a state replacement.

The Nebraska State Education Association — the state’s largest teachers union — expressed concerns over the state’s participation in the federal program.

“Today’s decision by Governor Pillen undermines the clear will of Nebraska voters, who just rejected state-level vouchers at the ballot box,” said Tim Royers, NSEA president. “This federal program is a backdoor voucher scheme that diverts public resources into private systems without accountability or limits.”

Pillen pushed back on the union’s premise, telling reporters that ballot initiatives in the state are flawed because “anybody that writes a big check can pay signature gatherers to get a [measure] on [the ballot]” and that Nebraskans “ totally agree” on school choice.

Voters in all but five of the state’s 49 legislative districts rejected the state’s voucher program in 2024.

“LB 753 and LB 1402 were signed into law in 2023 and 2024 and created similar tax credit programs at the state level for everyday Nebraskans,” part of the executive order reads. “The teachers union stole these opportunities for students in poverty to receive educational opportunities.”

Pillen, during the event, also said pursuing additional school choice legislation remains a high priority for him so Nebraska can be “competitive” with other states — if he’s given the “privilege to serve a second term.” Nebraska is one of the last remaining states without a school voucher program.

Nebraska’s Smith is credited with leading the congressional effort to include the provision in Trump’s tax bill this summer. He said the motivation for the proposal was former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe in 2021 saying he doesn’t “think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

“I found that particularly chilling,” Smith said. “[It] gave me more motivation here to work on this so that parents and families can be empowered.”

The federal program begins in 2027. It allocates up to $1,700 a year in federal tax credits to individuals who donate to organizations providing scholarships for K-12 students to attend private and religious schools.

Pillen, when asked by reporters, said he would be open to broadening the tax credit to people and organizations donating to the private foundations supporting public schools and public school districts as well.

As the federal program now stands, scholarship funds would be available to families whose household incomes do not exceed 300 percent of an area’s median gross income.

Nationally, more than 138 million people could be eligible to make use of the tax credit in 2027, according to an analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Part of the push for more taxpayer-funded vouchers or programs for K-12 students to attend private schools has been the resistance from some teachers, advocates and lawmakers to reintroducing more religion in public schools, including in Nebraska. Recent efforts in Nebraska have been bottled up in committee or faced filibusters.

“Just think we can be in the environment here, where we talk about God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit all in one,” Pillen told the audience.

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2025/09/29/nebraska-gets-a-private-school-t...