The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) recognizes that children and youth with disabilities are entitled to equal access to the public education system and to all rights guaranteed by law. CEC advocates to ensure that children and youth with disabilities receive the equal access and opportunity that they deserve. By definition, vouchers provide for the distribution of public education funds in the form of monetary vouchers to parents of school-age children to be used toward the cost of tuition at private schools, both sectarian and nonsectarian. Ever since the current debate about education vouchers was sparked in the 1950s, legislators at every level of government have proposed and enacted school voucher and voucher type initiatives for children and youth, and those with disabilities. CEC opposes school vouchers for children and youth and those with disabilities as being contrary to the best interests of children and youth and their families, the public school system, local communities, and taxpayers. Further, CEC believes that vouchers both contradict and undermine central purposes of civil rights laws designed to protect children and youth with disabilities. CEC considers vouchers inappropriate for children and youth and those with disabilities for at least the following reasons: (1) Absence of necessary accountability; (2) No guarantee of a free appropriate public education; (3) Families opt out of procedural protections; (4) Segregation within the private school; (5) No guarantee of equal access; (6) Promotes Re-segregation rather than diversity; and (7) Use of public education funds for private schools.