The Education Department is being told to use discretionary money to prioritize school choice programs and give states new guidance on how they can use federal money to support K-12 voucher programs.
The executive order that he plans to sign Wednesday could free up some pockets of federal money to be used on school choice, but it is not clear how far he could move the needle with federal money alone. The vast majority of school funding comes from state and local sources, and school choice policies are generally the purview of state governments.
The order says traditional public schools have failed students and that the new administration will reverse course “by opening up opportunities for students to attend the school that best fits their needs.”
Other agencies, including the departments of Defense and Health and Human Services and the Bureau of Indian Education, would be directed to help states and families find ways to use existing federal money for school choice programs.
The signing, as conservative groups are celebrating National School Choice, comes the same day that results from a national exam found that America's students have continued to fall behind in reading and made little improvement in math in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The order cites the National Assessment of Educational Progress finding that 70% of eighth-grade students were not proficient in reading and 72% were not proficient in math.
Responding to the results, the Trump administration said it is “committed to reorienting our education system to fully empower states, to prioritize meaningful learning and provide universal access to high-quality instruction.”
