President Trump, returning to a promise that won him cheers on
the campaign trail, signaled in his first address to Congress on Tuesday that
he will move aggressively to allow more public school students to use tax money
to pay for tuition at public charter
schools, private schools and even religious schools.
At rallies last year across
the country, Mr. Trump said over and over again that he would use the nation’s
schools to fix what he described as failing inner cities and a virtual
education crisis that most hurts black and Hispanic children. In North Carolina,
he called school choice “the great civil rights issue of our time.” In Florida,
he declared that “every disadvantaged child in this country” should have access
to school choice.
And, at a Washington
gathering of conservatives, he said that under his administration, “money will
follow the student to the public, private or religious school that is best for
them and their family.” In his speech on Tuesday, Mr. Trump reiterated those
pledges, and in doing so backed his controversial education secretary, Betsy
DeVos, who has built her career on promoting voucher programs.
“I am calling upon members
of both parties to pass an education bill that funds school choice for
disadvantaged youth, including millions of African-American and Latino
children,” Mr. Trump said during the joint session of Congress, to applause
from many Republican lawmakers. “These families should be free to choose the
public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school that is right for
them.”
In a statement, Ms. DeVos praised the president and said he
“delivered on his promise to support school choice and offer students access to
quality options.”
A
Department of Education official said on Wednesday afternoon that Mr. Trump and
Ms. DeVos were considering a number of ways to create a federal school choice
program that would offer tax credit scholarships. That would allow individuals
and corporations to make tax deductible donations to nonprofit networks of
private schools, which then provide tuition scholarships to students. The administration
is also considering allowing schools to directly access Title I funds from the
Education Department that are used to help support low income students.
On the campaign trail, Mr.
Trump introduced an ambitious $20 billion school voucher plan that would have
allowed students to move federal education dollars to the public or private
school of their choice. But the idea, seen by some as radical and expensive,
has scant congressional support.
Meanwhile, even some
supporters of school choice programs remain skeptical of increased federal
involvement, which could come with regulations on which students are accepted
by private schools, and how students are assessed academically.
Greg
Forster, a fellow at EdChoice, a research and advocacy organization that promotes
school choice options, said that while he welcomes more support for the idea of
school choice, he wants the issue to remain a state responsibility. “We have
achieved a lot of victories at the state level by building bridges,” Mr.
Forster said. Having Mr. Trump as an advocate “is a bigger problem for the
school choice movement than it is a blessing, in my book,” he said. He added
that there is “no need for a federal push for school choice” because the
options are increasingly gaining ground, leading to 61 private school choice
programs in 30 states and the District of Columbia.
Robin Lake, director of the
University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education, said
opinions like Mr. Forster’s show that a federal choice program will be a tough
sell to Congress. “Even the Republicans are in disagreement about a lot of the
details about how the program would work,” Ms. Lake said.
The
choice movement has ranged from the narrow embrace of public charter schools to
an approach favored by conservatives that would take tax money and increasingly
make it available to religious institutions. Some see allowing religious
schools to use public funds as an unconstitutional support of religion by the
government. Yet advocates and opponents of such programs say religious schools
— including many Catholic schools serving low-income students — have for years
been included in the voucher programs.
More than a decade ago, the
United States Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution could not prohibit the
use of public vouchers to pay for religious schools in Cleveland. However, in
2015, Colorado’s highest court struck down a voucher program that allowed
parents in a conservative suburban school district to use taxpayer dollars to
send their children to private schools. The Colorado court ruled that “a school
district may not aid religious schools.”
Critics
fear that school choice programs can lead to increased segregation. They say
black, Latino and white students in urban areas often end up in schools that
are more racially homogeneous than their neighborhood schools. Moreover, choice
programs could bypass rural school districts where private schools are not an
option, and where online schooling has often been shown not to improve
education.
Lily Eskelsen García, president
of the National Education Association, said she worried that a federal program
would fund private schools and religious schools that may not adhere to the
same civil rights laws as public schools. She said such a program would be
“essentially supporting a religious doctrine.”
“They can discriminate based on religion, or disability or
language needs,” Ms. García said of private and religious schools. “That is the
exact antithesis of a public school.”
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