Editor’s note: This was first published on Mike Petrilli’s Substack, SCHOOLED.
Some education debates are evergreen, but here’s one that’s a bit more urgent: How to get at least a handful of Democratic governors to opt their states into the big school choice opportunity included within the One Big Beautiful Bill Act?
Today, I’d like to (mostly) set aside the policy debate over private school choice. Let’s talk tactics. Assume you believe that it would be a net positive for low-income and working-class kids in blue cities in blue states—including New York, LA, Philadelphia, and Chicago—to be able to attend Catholic schools and other private schools at public expense. Given the odds against enacting school choice legislation in such locales, this federal opportunity might be the best shot in at least a generation.
The question is how the Trump administration can make it more likely that some blue-state governors take the plunge. The reason the Trump team plays such a key role is that the language in the law itself is rather vague when it comes to key issues around program design—issues that might matter to said Democratic governors. Which in turn means that the Treasury Department, which is charged with implementing the initiative, can settle some questions via regulation. This was at the heart of a really good debate that my colleagues at Education Next hosted earlier this month.
Here’s a fast refresher on key bits of the new tax credit. Starting in January 2027, taxpayers will be able to take a dollar-for-dollar credit worth up to $1,700 on their federal taxes for donating to any eligible scholarship granting organization (SGO). The SGO does not have to be in the same state as the taxpayer, but SGOs do have to be approved by a given state’s governor, who also opts into the program. The SGOs raise money via taxpayer “donations,” and then can turn around and provide scholarships to families making up to 300 percent of the median income of the local metro area. Scholarships can also go toward tutoring and other allowable uses covered by the Coverdell program, including uses by public (and public charter) school students.
So what should the Treasury Department do? (Specifically, a guy named “Steve” at Treasury, who is supposed to come up with the regulations, or so I hear.) Here are the three main options.
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Cut off opportunities for governors to specify how the initiative will work in their state. This hardline position, supported by Robert Enlow and Jim Blew, among others, would say that once governors opt in to their state’s participation in the initiative, they have little more to decide. They must (for example) approve any SGO that applies and meets the requirements of the federal law, which are quite minimal.
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Bar governors from opting in to the “public school” portion of the initiative without also signing up for the private school choice part. This middle ground (which I prefer) would ensure that “opting in” to the tax credit initiative means opting in wholeheartedly. A Democratic governor shouldn’t be able to block private school scholarships for kids in his or her state while giving public and charter school students access to tutoring assistance and the like. But those governors could tailor the private school provisions to their liking (more on that below).
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Offer maximum flexibility. Governors could opt into just the supplemental services provisions if they wanted, not the school scholarship part. And could regulate the SGOs operating in their states, for example by limiting scholarships to just low-income and working-class kids, or make participating schools abide by the state’s human rights laws (i.e., pro-LGBTQ rules), or release test score results at the school level for transparency purposes. My read is that Jorge Elorza supports this option.
I see pros and cons to each and try not to be clouded by my own policy preferences (namely, to limit private school choice to low income and working-class kids, and to ensure testing and accountability is in place).
Some choice advocates think that, even with the hardline option 1, they will be able to move some Democratic governors into the “yes” column (maybe Shapiro and Polis)? After all, it’s “free money” on the table, including for tutoring and such for public and charter school kids, plus private school choice for key constituencies in the Democratic party, including the Black and Hispanic voters who are slipping away from them. Don’t compromise on program design issues, goes the thinking, just focus on putting maximum pressure on the governors. Some will bend. So it’s predicted.
On the flip side, allowing those governors to opt into a lite version of the initiative via flexible option 3, even just for tutoring scholarships, might open the door to more school choice down the line. Once parents get a taste for mini scholarships, they might put pressure on governors to give them access to the whole thing. Maybe?
I like the middle option 2 (yes, that’s on brand for me). It doesn’t feel right to turn what was meant to be a private school choice initiative into just another federal funding stream for public school services, so I’m not enamored with option 3. But I’m not convinced that option 1 will actually result in any Democratic governors saying yes. I worry that it will be too easy for them to say, “I’m not in favor of windfalls for private school families making $400,000 a year” (as could happen in some wealthy metro areas) or “I don’t believe in public funding going to schools that aren’t accountable to the public.” Let’s take those excuses away, says I. And let a Governor Shapiro, for example, embrace private school choice for low-income kids in Pennsylvania.
But what do you think? Please weigh in!
