Education Freedom and Parental Empowerment through School Choice
We are actively working to open the door for more parents to have access to alternative education options for their students. We believe education freedom is essential. Parents know what is best to meet the unique needs of their children and must be free to select the learning avenues they desire. Consequently, funding should be attached to the individual student, not the system.
The K-12 Public Education Monopoly
In America, K-12 public education has operated largely as a monopoly. In fact, other than state-owned monopolies in China, it is the largest government-controlled monopoly in the world.
Individuals pay taxes that fund public schools, and children are assigned to a specific school based on their home address and school zone boundary lines. The majority of families are not able to select a different public school (other than in communities with mandated public school open enrollment laws) regardless of the school’s failure to provide quality student learning or to keep children physically safe. In order to move outside of the public system, parents must be able to homeschool or have the ability to pay tuition for private schooling — whether the private school is traditional, hybrid, online, a learning pod, a microschool, cooperatives, tutors, or a combination.
The lack of market competition in K-12 education results in the subpar status quo. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam scores reveal that private school students score significantly higher in each individual subject than public school students at all testing grade levels — fourth, eighth, and twelfth. This is despite public schools spending, on average, $16,947 per student per year compared to the national private school tuition averaging $12,356.
By stifling competition, innovation suffers, academic accountability is dramatically weakened, and curriculum transparency is not required. Additionally, fiscal responsibility is nearly irrelevant as the vast majority of students are trapped in the public education system, maintaining its near monopoly.
Historically, most parents have accepted this reality, either not understanding how it could change or not believing change was possible.
Education Savings Accounts
Due to the flexible nature afforded to parents, Education Savings Accounts are the gold standard of school choice programs. An Education Savings Account grants parents a government-funded account to allocate toward the K-12 education of their children. Parents can allocate those toward a wide range of educational expenses, including tuition, tutoring, textbooks, curriculum, test fees, therapies for students with special needs, and educational technology. Furthermore, in some states, the Education Savings Account funds can be saved for the student’s future college tuition.
Universal School Choice
A few years ago, the hope of providing all families within a state with funding to select the education avenues that would best serve their individual children was considered nearly unimaginable. Yet huge historic wins for education freedom were achieved during the 2022, 2023, and 2024 legislative sessions, and more are anticipated.
