{"id":6359,"date":"2023-09-25T22:14:53","date_gmt":"2023-09-25T22:14:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/?p=6359"},"modified":"2024-10-15T22:01:11","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T22:01:11","slug":"educational-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/2023\/09\/25\/educational-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Educational Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 educational freedom were achieved during the 2022 and 2023 legislative sessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">States with Universal School Choice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As of two years ago, statewide school choice wasn&#8217;t a reality. Today, 10 states have signed universal or near-universal school choice into law:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Six states \u2014 Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Utah, and West Virginia \u2014 passed universal education savings accounts.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Three states \u2014 Indiana, North Carolina, and Ohio \u2014 passed private school vouchers.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One state \u2014 Oklahoma \u2014 passed a universal tax credit for private school tuition and homeschooling expenses.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Education Savings Accounts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of the various school choice programs, education savings accounts are the most flexible, granting families the ability to receive a government-authorized savings account that can be used to fund the educational avenue of their choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>As of now, 15 states have enacted education savings account programs.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Nine states \u2014 Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee \u2014 have education savings account programs that reach qualifying students based on varying requirements.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Six states \u2014 Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Utah, and West Virginia \u2014 have universal education savings account programs with all students statewide qualifying.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Other states are positioned to join the education savings account ranks in the coming years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We have been on the front lines when it comes to making educational freedom a reality for more and more families throughout the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p>If you missed our annual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/donate\/\" class=\"ek-link\">ACTE Special Day of Giving<\/a> recently, it is not too late to join us \u2013 There is no more important investment than the education and protection of children.<\/p><cite>Keri D. Ingraham<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Would you join us in this work through a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/donate\/\">tax-deductible donation<\/a> to help us keep up the tremendous momentum of significant wins achieved, reaching more states?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We aren\u2019t stopping, as all children in every state must have the opportunity to receive a high-quality education that supports parental rights and aligns with the values of their family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you missed our annual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/donate\/\" class=\"ek-link\">ACTE Special Day of Giving<\/a> recently, it is not too late to join us \u2013 There is no more important investment than the education and protection of children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As of two years ago, statewide school choice wasn&#8217;t a reality. Today, 10 states have signed universal or near-universal school choice into law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":441,"featured_media":6360,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[48,47],"tags":[1371,762,1597,194,78,205,756,74,1309,1772],"coauthors":[1073],"class_list":["post-6359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-policy","category-school-choice","tag-education-savings-account","tag-educational-freedom","tag-families","tag-homeschool","tag-k-12","tag-k-12-education","tag-private-school-voucher","tag-school-choice","tag-statewide-educational-freedom","tag-tax-credit"],"acf":[],"author_names":["Keri D. Ingraham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/441"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6359"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6359"}],"wp:action-assign-author":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/6359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}