President Donald Trump will soon head to Florida to make his first school visit since taking office, and he’s opting for a Catholic school in Orlando that serves large numbers of students who use the state’s tax-credit scholarships to help pay for their tuition.
It’s another clear sign that the Trump administration will pursue some flavor of a national school choice policy, and it might just be modeled on Florida’s robust tax-credit scholarship program, which offer tax credits to entice businesses and individuals to donate to a scholarship granting organization. At his address to Congress earlier this week when he called for more school choice, one of his featured guests was Denisha Merriweather, a former recipient of a tax-credit scholarship who used the money to pay for private school tuition in Florida.
So, just how would the Trump administration and Congress create a national tax-credit scholarship program?
For starters, they’d probably bypass the House and Senate education committees, a scenario that Andrew Ujifusa very ably explains over at Politics K-12 this morning. Dive in.
And for an even more basic primer on how tax-credit scholarships work and how they differ from their close school choice cousins—vouchers and education savings accounts—see Arianna Prothero’s explainer.