There are cockroaches inside the lockers at Hyde Park middle school in Las Vegas, so Victoria Piñeiro, 13, carries her lunchbox, violin and heavy backpack with her all day long. She attends classes under ceilings that leak during rainstorms. And on hot afternoons, school is often canceled because the air conditioning has broken down.

Victoria told Nevada lawmakers this at an educational forum in April 2015, begging them to prioritize funding for a state school system ranked dead last in the nation.

Instead, in June 2015, the state went on to adopt the most far-reaching voucher-style program in the US, incentivizing parents to abandon public schools with annual $5,100 education savings accounts (ESAs) for private schooling – regardless of household wealth or income level.

ACLU sues to block sweeping Nevada education funding program Read more

But Nevada’s “school choice” program, originally scheduled to begin in January, is on hold pending arguments on 29 July in the state supreme court. A group of parents are suing to kill the program, claiming that it illegally relies on money reserved for public schools. The ACLU is also challenging the law on grounds that state funds cannot be used for religious purposes, such as parochial schooling.

Critics of the vouchers say they will make a bleak situation worse – Nevada received the lowest grade in the nation, a D, in Education Week’s 2016 state report card because of poor school funding, lackluster student achievement and dismal chances of success. Public school advocates claim the vouchers will further deplete resources and increase segregation in the community, and are aghast that the state’s wealthiest families will be eligible for the private school subsidy.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Victoria Piñeiro, 13, with other students and parents in Carson City in March 2015 to tell Nevada lawmakers to prioritize funding for the state school system. Photograph: Courtesy of Susie Martinez

ESA supporters believe vouchers can help by fuelling competition and easing public school overcrowding.

Both sides agree that if the program survives its present legal challenge, the “sweeping” effort will have implications throughout the US.

“It’s never been done on this scale before,” said Michael Schaus, of the Nevada Policy Research Institute. He noted that other states have limited access to school vouchers solely to low-income families or specific school districts. “ESAs in Nevada would apply to 94% of all children statewide, so you are going to get a very clear picture of how it impacts educational performance throughout the state.

“As a result, you might see other states that have toyed with school choice expand their programs, if they see that this is a success.”

Schaus’s organization promotes free-market policies; he commended the law’s “inclusiveness”. But wide access to the vouchers has led to complaints that the program disproportionally benefits higher-income families. In October 2015, a Las Vegas Review-Journal report showed that more than 80% of early ESA applicants lived in Clark County’s wealthiest zip codes. Only 11% of the applications came from families whose median income level was in the bottom 40% of all Nevadans.

“It’s a drain of public education funds,” said Sylvia Lazos of Educate Nevada Now, an organization coordinating ESA opposition. “I call it a reverse Robin Hood. We would be using public dollars to encourage our more affluent and mobile parents to move to private schools. This will sharpen the [class] divide and make it even more difficult for those schools that are struggling.”

Parents like Susie Martinez, Victoria’s mother, don’t have work schedules that allow them to drive their kids to and from private schools, most of which are located in the suburbs. Nor can they afford the additional tuition costs not covered by ESAs. More than 80% of Nevada private schools cost an average of $4,800 more than the voucher amount each year, according to a survey by Educate Nevada Now.

“I’m a single parent,” said Martinez, a front desk clerk at the Flamingo resort. “Already I’m thinking about paying for college. I’m putting a little away for that, but I can’t afford private school.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Victoria Piñeiro, 13, and her mother, Susie Martinez. Photograph: Courtesy of Susie Martinez

Then there are parents like Nancy González, who jumped at the chance to transfer her daughters to a Catholic middle school where classes top out at 15 students, teachers offer more personal attention and academic standards have proven more rigorous.

González panicked when a state judge put “school choice” on hold in January, but she and her husband, a landscaper, managed to keep their daughters in parochial school through a Nevada scholarship strictly available to low-income families.

So far, more than 6,300 voucher applications have been filed statewide, despite the legal injunction, and if the law stands, Schaus said those transfers should help public schools deal with overcrowding. In some classrooms, individual teachers are responsible for more than 40 students. And since each pupil costs the state more than the $5,100 voucher amount to educate, schools should save money on ESA transfers, Schaus claimed.

But parents fighting the law in court cite data showing that those “exits” would be too scattered to allow schools to cut costs. Public schools would have to retain the same number of teachers and administrators, yet still suffer a $30m revenue loss, based on current estimates.

Further complicating the debate is a movement to make private school funding available to more middle- and higher-income families. Currently, funds are only available for children enrolled in public school for at least 100 days, a rule meant to make the program “cost-neutral” for school districts. Parents whose kids are already enrolled in private schools want ESA funds made available to them, too, though. Some parochial schools have also reported dramatic enrollment dips, as parents transfer their kids to public schools to get them eligible for vouchers, fully intending to bring them back to their original private schools.

In southern Nevada, about 60% of public school children are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches, a metric used to measure poverty, and many are ELL students (English language learners). Those children are more expensive to educate, Lazos noted, and are therefore less likely to transfer to private schools, many of which lack the resources to handle their learning needs. Private schools can also discriminate against children with disabilities or those who come from troubled homes, Lazos added, while public schools are legally obliged to handle children with special needs, yet may struggle to do so with diminished funding.

The Nevada constitution forbids public-school money from being diverted to other programs, which has allowed the anti-ESA lawsuit to gain traction. If the state supreme court were to kill the law, Nevada’s Republican legislature could call a special session to amend the constitution. But lawmakers would have to act quickly, since the GOP is expected to lose its hold on the state government in November.

“There’s so much uncertainty,” said Rachel Affleck, a Las Vegas mother of three who wants to apply for voucher money. “It’s a nightmare.”

Her husband turned down a “high-profile” engineering job in California so they could use ESA funding to send their kids to American Heritage Academy in Las Vegas. “Public school just can’t work for my family,” she said. “Let the program kick off. Let’s not stall in showing what innovative legislation Nevada has. Let’s show the world how brilliant our education system is capable of becoming.”