WASHINGTON — Parents could have more choice over where to send their children to school under a new executive order President Donald Trump is expected to sign Wednesday.
According to a White House document on the executive order, the education secretary will be directed to prioritize school choice programs in the Department of Education’s discretionary grant programs.
The executive order involves multiple federal agencies.
The Department of Health and Human Services will be ordered to issue guidance on how states that receive federal grants for children and families can use the money for private and faith-based education. The defense secretary will be directed to submit a plan to the president on how military families can use Pentagon funds to send children to schools of their choosing, and the interior secretary will likewise be directed to determine how families with students attending Bureau of Indian Education schools can use federal funding to go to other schools.
“Every child deserves the best education available, regardless of their zip code,” the executive order reads. “However, for generations, our government-assigned education system has failed millions of parents, students and teachers. This Executive Order begins to rectify that wrong by opening up opportunities for students to attend the school that best fits their needs.”
The order comes the same day the National Assessment of Education Progress released its biannual report card on U.S. schools. The newest results from the national exam given to fourth- and eighth-grade students finds that U.S. children have lost ground on reading skills since the COVID-19 pandemic and have made only slight improvements in math.
The executive order says school choice programs, which allow families to use public money to attend a school outside of their assigned district, save taxpayer dollars and improve student academic performance.
More than half of U.S. states have at least one private school choice program, according to Education Week’s private school choice tracker, and 12 have programs that will eventually accept applications from all students in the state.
For the 2024-25 school year, more than 1 million of the country’s 50 million K-12 students were enrolled in schools through private school choice programs, according to the nonprofit EdChoice.
Multiple studies on the academic effectiveness of school choice programs show mixed results.
The Senate confirmation hearing for Trump’s education secretary nominee, Linda McMahon, has not yet been set. McMahon is a former professional wrestler and wrestling executive who served as administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term.
