The inclusion of a modified version of the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) as part of the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” that was signed into law on July 4 will expand K-12 education freedom to children across all 50 states. Indeed, these landmark provisions effectively fulfill President Trump’s vision of universal access to school choice for all but the wealthy.

These new federal school choice provisions will financially empower parents to access the highest quality and most suitable K-12 education for their children that will prepare them for college and career, while respecting their values and input. It would do so by generating charitable donations to not-for-profit scholarship granting organizations to fund scholarships -- donations which will be offset by a 100 percent credit against federal individual income taxes for up to $1,700 annually.

In several ways, this new law codifies President Trump’s executive order earlier this year to improve educational outcomes by empowering parents and communities, with no involvement by the U.S. Education Department.

Five years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the nationwide learning loss for millions of children, confirmed by the alarming results from the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), must be reversed. This terrible educational legacy of COVID remains as the result of prolonged closures of public schools throughout the nation at the behest of the teachers’ union leadership and charlatan public health officials.

In response, many families, at great financial sacrifice, enrolled their children in alternative private schools, created micro-schools, or homeschooled their children. By contrast, the typical response to these poor academic outcomes from the public education establishment that opposes choice is to demand more taxpayer money. 

During COVID, Congress added $190 billion in K-12 education spending above the funding baseline, yet the two sets of NAEP results since then sadly showed continued stagnation and decline in reading and mathematics for students in elementary and middle school.  

Expanding parental choice in education is the better path that has proven to be effective.

Since the COVID pandemic started, more than two dozen states have created or expanded school choice opportunities. During this 2025 school year, 1.25 million students are benefiting from school choice laws. The new federal school choice provisions are expected to significantly increase this number and strengthen the positive competitive impact on K-12 education.

Modeled after several state laws, the new provisions consist of income tax credits to generate charitable private donations to fund scholarships for students in K-12 education for tuition, tutoring, special needs, and other education expenses.

School choice has long been documented to improve student academic results in private and public schools, increase parent satisfaction, and strengthen racial and ethnic integration, among other benefits. Of the more than 200 empirical studies on school choice in the last three decades, 86 percent showed better outcomes, while only 7 percent showed a negative impact.

These facts never penetrate the shopworn, sky-is-falling canards from opponents of school choice. We’ve come to expect as much. Thankfully, President Trump and Congress rightly put the needs of children and parents first and summarily dismissed this cacophony from the same bureaucrats and bosses who kept public schools closed and harmed millions of children in the process.

For others who question federal involvement in education, they should comprehend this federal school choice for what it is: a tax incentive that will encourage the private sector to invest in children’s education. These new provisions would not conduct education policy or regulate participating schools from Washington; rather, privately funded -- not government -- scholarships will give parents more control of their children’s schooling. This means the government at any level has no avenue to control a participating school or infringe on its religious liberty, as affirmed by U.S. Supreme Court case law.

Moreover, governors of each state are given the discretion to decide if their state’s children can benefit by them having to annually authorize scholarship granting organizations to receive tax-credited donations, the so-called “opt-in” provision. For any governor who puts children’s needs first -- in public, charter, private or religious schools -- the choice to opt-in is obvious.

President Trump and Congress were right to expand parental choice in K-12 by passing the federal scholarship tax credit as part of their “One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” which will expand not just educational opportunity, but strengthen equality and justice for millions of children in all 50 states. As with civil rights enacted two generations ago, expanding education freedom will leave a positive legacy by benefitting children for this and generations to come.

Peter Murphy is Senior Advisor to the Invest in Education Coalition.

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