^{The Bottom Line} The Missing Ingredient in Education Is Meaningful Choice

Roughly $800 billion is spent annually on K-12 education, yet the National Assessment of Educational Progress results indicate that, on average, seven out of 10 public school students score below grade-level proficiency in reading and math.

As I wrote in my article last month in The Daily Wire, when it comes to the pitiful student learning results in education, “The missing ingredient is not money — it’s meaningful choice.”

Parents have been trapped by the government-run, teacher-union controlled K-12 public education monopoly. While federal spending accounts for only roughly 10% of overall education spending, it controls perhaps 90% of the rules and regulations. This federal bureaucracy significantly hinders the ability of states to innovate. Thankfully, for parents and the American public, the Trump administration is taking decisive action to change course by downsizing the U.S. Department of Education and returning education to the states.

Additionally, governors are increasingly recognizing that school choice is the much-needed solution.

Just over five years ago, no state had universal school choice or anything close to it. Today, 17 states have enacted universal school choice, taking the first step in creating a free-market K-12 education environment by empowering parents.

Additionally, the Education Freedom Tax Credit, signed into law by President Trump on July 4, 2025, will expand school choice across America. This scholarship program for K-12 students allows individual taxpayers to receive a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit up to $1,700 annually for donations to approved Scholarship Granting Organizations. These scholarships can be applied not only to private school tuition but also to textbooks, tutoring, therapies for students with special needs, and a host of other educational expenses.

However, for children to be eligible to receive a scholarship from the federal tax credit program, the state must opt in by the governor. With tremendous momentum, 30 states have already opted into the federal tax credit scholarship program. Those states are:

School choice has the power to change the trajectory of a child’s life. When school choice is present in a community, the quality of education increases — not just for students who exit the public education system, but also for students who remain, as public schools are incentivized to improve by the market force of competition school choice creates.