As educators, students and community members across the country, we write today in strong opposition to the interim final rule regarding equitable services in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funding. This rule both undermines public schools and is contrary to the underlying law, and should be withdrawn.

Our country is currently dealing with a pandemic, an economic recession and structural racism—three crises that affect public schools across this country. At a time when we need our federal leaders to step up to support public schools and the 90 percent of students who attend them, the Department of Education is using the CARES Act to try to revive a failed school privatization agenda.

But that seems to be the purpose of this rule: It would result in $1.35 billion being diverted away from public schools serving low-income students and redirected to private schools serving wealthy students. (While private schools certainly educate some low-income students, those students are already accounted for in the allocation required under the law. The rule would cause an additional $1.35 billion to flow to private schools.)

For decades, federal education law has required that districts set aside some Title I funding to provide services to low-income students who attend private schools within that district’s boundaries. The process for determining the funding allocation for those “equitable services” is well-established and well-understood.

When Congress passed the CARES Act, it included important funding for schools and directed districts to follow the well-established precedent in setting aside funding for “equitable services” using the Title I formula. In plain contradiction of the law, this rule would require districts to either severely restrict the way they can use their own funding or set aside a much greater amount of funding for private school students than they normally would. As a result, funding intended to go to public schools serving low-income students would instead go to private schools.

Our schools need additional resources to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Congress set out to provide those resources via the CARES Act. This interim final rule runs contrary to both equity and that law, and should be withdrawn.