When Anti-CRT Becomes Anti-Care: Navigating Curricular Controversies Amid Voucher-Induced Changes to a Private Religious School Landscape

Abstract

As access to private religious education expands through vouchers, public discourse has positioned these schools as politically neutral spaces. Teachers who seek to ethically care for students are thus placed in a predicament. In this article, we present the fictive case study of a middle school teacher in a suburban Catholic school that has accepted vouchers and consequently undergone significant demographic and political shifts. When the teacher makes a curricular decision that responds in caring and critical ways to their students, they face a wave of parental opinions that call their instruction and ethical aims into question.