The bill is considered “the biggest piece of legislation that’s passed in in school choice history.”
School choice is the stance of parents that want the ability to choose from multiple different education opportunities for their children. This allows students to have broader options beyond their assigned public school, such as charter schools and private schools.
Speaking to Fox News Channel, founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform, Jeanne Allen, emphasized the need for school choice in America.
"If you live in America and you have great public schools, let's say 30 percent of people, you don't have an issue. If you happen to live in a state where you have options because the states have given it to you and you can go to charters or private schools with money following you, great. The rest of us have to pay for it, and that hurts particularly middle class and poor students,” says Allen.
She detailed how exactly the new law will provide school choice for kids. As she explained, if individuals contribute to a scholarship-granting organization, there is now a seventeen-hundred-dollar tax credit available for them.
“The federal government has recognized the importance of education options for kids, and they're putting their skin in the game. They're saying if you and I contribute to a scholarship organization, at the end of the year, we will get a dollar-for-dollar tax credit towards our taxes.” Allen explains. “And what that does is that actually creates a stockpile in school organizations, giving scholarships to kids who need those choices to be able to grant them.”
Allen went on to say that, while critics argue the new law will gut public schools, this is a lie.
"Thirty years ago, we wrote a report called Nine Lies About School Choice, and they're still there… We have to open up the floodgates for students to get educated,” Allen concludes.
