Latest news with #privateSchoolChoice
Forbes
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
Applications Are Up: Tracking The Growth Of Private School Choice Programs
Supporters of charter schools rally outside of the Supreme Court on Wednesday, April 30, 2025, in ... More Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) Across the country, private school choice programs are processing applications for next school year. Some application windows have closed and some remain open, but one fact is clear, private school choice is growing. Private school choice programs take several forms. Traditionally, states created voucher programs, which provide a state-funded scholarship for students to attend private school. States also instituted tuition tax credit scholarship programs that give taxpayers a credit for donations to private organizations that grant scholarships to students to attend private schools. More recently, states have created education savings account programs that put state funding into flexible use spending accounts that families can use on educational expenses like private school tuition, tutoring, therapies for students with special needs, and more. This spring, multiple states have created new private school choice programs. Most notably, Texas passed Senate Bill 2, creating a $1 billion education savings account program. But Texas was not alone. Idaho passed a refundable tax credit program to give families $5,000 per child towards qualifying educational expenses. Tennessee passed the Education Freedom Act, creating education savings accounts worth $7,000 per student per year. Applications for the 2025-26 school year opened last week and the state reported that 33,000 families applied for the program on the first day. In fact, applications are up all across the country. Last year, Louisiana created the Louisiana Giving All True Opportunity to Rise Scholarship Program (yes, that makes the acronym LA GATOR). The application period for the 2025-26 school year was open from March 1st to April 15th. According to the state department of education, 39,189 students applied and 34,848 were deemed eligible to participate. Of those, 81% came from families at or below 250% of the federal poverty level and nearly 3,000 were students with disabilities. Considering that Louisiana's existing voucher program, which has been on the books since 2008, had only 5,415 students participating in it, this represents massive growth. Arkansas saw more applications in the first day of this year's application window than total participants in last year's program. It has blown well past last year's numbers since then. There were 16,386 total applications the first day, and according to the state, there have been 41,568 applications in total for the 2025-26 school year. In West Virginia, where 10,805 Hope Scholarship applications were approved for 2024-25, officials are projecting more than 19,000 participants for this school year. In Florida, some of the state's private school choice programs' application windows have closed and some are still open. When statistics were reported at the end of March, the state saw more than 120,000 student applications in the first weekend and more than 425,000 in total, with more expected. Of those 425,000, 340,000 were renewing scholarships and 85,000 were applying for the first time. It is worth lingering for a moment on the large-scale trend line in private school choice enrollment. Total enrollment in private school choice programs doubled from 2020 to 2025, going from approximately 540,000 to 1.2 million students. With the passage of Texas' new program, roughly half of American schoolchildren will be eligible for a voucher, tax credit scholarship, or education savings account. (Not all would be able to attend though, as while several states' programs have universal eligibility, they have funding caps in place that limit total participation.) And, this is happening while public school enrollment is decreasing. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, overall enrollment in US public schools decreased by 2.5 percent from 2019 to 2023. It does not appear to be rebounding. Some of that is due to a long running baby bust, but families with children are also opting out of the public system in increasing numbers. A recent Los Angeles Times story quoted Stanford University's Tom Dee, who has looked more closely at these numbers than possibly anyone in the county. His conclusion? 'The public school enrollment losses also reflect an enduring increase in private and home-school enrollment…The combination of private and home-school enrollment is over 4% higher than it was at the beginning of the pandemic.' If current trends continue, and public school enrollment declines while publicly financed private enrollment grows, we could see a major reworking of our nation's education system in a relatively short number of years.
New York Times
13-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Federal School Voucher Proposal Advances, a Milestone for Conservatives
Advocates for private-school choice celebrated this week as a federal schools voucher bill moved closer to becoming law, a major milestone that eluded their movement during President Trump's first term. The House Republican budget proposal that advanced on Monday would devote $5 billion to federal vouchers for private-school tuition, home-schooling materials and for-profit virtual learning. The program in the budget bill could bring vouchers to all 50 states for the first time, including Democratic-leaning ones that have long rejected the idea. Supporters hailed the proposal as 'historic' and a 'huge win,' but some cautioned that there was still much legislative haggling ahead. 'Ultimately, every child, especially from lower-income families, should have access to the school of their choice, and this legislation is the only way to make that happen,' said Tommy Shultz, chief executive of the American Federation for Children, a private-school choice advocacy group. Opponents of the proposal were stunned at its sweeping implications. While it is in line with President Trump's agenda, it had been considered somewhat of a long shot to make it out of the House Ways and Means Committee, because of its cost. The program is structured as a $5 billion tax credit, allowing donors to reduce their tax bill by $1 for every $1 they give to nonprofits that grant scholarships — up to 10 percent of the donor's income. The option to donate is expected to be popular with wealthy taxpayers. The resulting scholarships could be worth $5,000 per child, reaching one million students. Any family who earns less than 300 percent of their area's median income — which equals over $300,000 in some parts of the country — could use the funds, meaning a vast majority of families would be eligible. The proposal could pass through the budget reconciliation process, and could become law with only 51 votes in a Senate where Republicans hold 53 seats. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, many Republican-led states passed new private-school choice laws, overcoming decades of resistance from teachers' unions, Democrats and rural conservatives. Opponents have long argued that vouchers hurt traditional public schools, by decreasing enrollment and funding levels. And they have pointed out that lower-income neighborhoods and rural areas often have few private schools, making it difficult for many families to use vouchers. 'We are against giving people tax breaks to defund public schools,' said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation's second-largest education union. She pointed out that while Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans have said they want to invest in work force education, artificial intelligence education and other priorities for student learning, they have consistently proposed cutting funding to public schools, which educate nearly 90 percent of American students. 'They don't believe in public schooling,' she said. 'What you're seeing here is the fragmentation of American education.' A boom in new private-education options, like virtual learning and microschools, has already changed the landscape — as has an influx of campaign spending from conservative donors, like the financier Jeff Yass, intended to build support for private-school choice. Last month, Texas became the last major Republican-led state to pass such legislation. Advocates quickly shifted their focus to Congress and the opportunity to push a federal voucher bill. Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, is the sponsor of a Senate bill similar to the House proposal, and celebrated its inclusion in the budget package. 'Expanding President Trump's tax cuts is about preserving the American dream,' he said in a written statement. 'Giving parents the ability to choose the best education for their child makes the dream possible.' But the proposal will still have to overcome opposition, on both the left and the right. Advocates for public schools have said that the new generation of vouchers and education savings accounts, which are often available to relatively affluent families, are a subsidy to parents who can already afford private education. In Florida, which has more children using vouchers than any other state in the nation, some public-school districts have experienced enrollment declines and are considering shutting down schools or cutting teaching positions. Even some conservative parental-rights activists oppose the creation of a federal program, which they worry could create a regulatory pathway that could eventually be used to impose government requirements on home-schooling parents or private schools — for example, by requiring standardized testing, which is not mentioned in the current proposal. 'The federal government should extricate itself from K-12 education to the fullest extent possible,' said Christopher Rufo, a leading crusader against diversity programs in schools, and a supporter of school choice. 'It's best left to the states.'
