The GOP-backed “Big, Beautiful Bill” includes an unconstitutional school choice program. A specific provision threatens the independence of private schools and sets a dangerous precedent of forcing them to comply with outrageously expensive federal mandates.
At the heart of the legislation, approved by the U.S. House of Representatives by all but a few Republicans, is a novel federal tax provision that is a backdoor to the nationalization of vouchers for private education tuition and homeschooling programs. The vouchers would be funded through charitable contributions from individuals to non-profit Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGO). In return, donors would receive federal tax credits equal to their contributions, a powerful financial incentive to donate. The SGOs would use the funds for scholarships for K–12 public and private school students, which could be applied toward various educational expenses such as private school tuition, textbooks, and homeschooling materials.
However, there is a catch! The bill states that accepting federally backed scholarship money requires private schools to comply with various federal statutes, including admitting students with disabilities. On pages 707–708, the bill refers to making contributions to scholarship granting organizations (SGOs) in return for tax credits. Using the contributions, SGOs would grant scholarships to homeschool or private school students with the following federal restriction:
No amount paid to an elementary or secondary school shall be considered a qualified elementary or secondary education expense for the purposes of this section unless such school demonstrates that it maintains a policy whereby its admissions standards do not take into account whether the student seeking enrollment has a current individualized education plan, nor takes into account that the student requires equitable services for a learning disability, and if a student does have such an individualized education plan, the school abides by the plan’s terms and provides services outlined therein.
In a nutshell, to receive this federal school choice funding, the admission policy of a private school cannot discriminate against disabled students. Further, the school must comply with the 1975 federal statute called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which dictates how government schools use federal funds for students diagnosed with disabilities. All students with a disability must be given a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) that tailors an Individual Education Plan for each student, according to what big-government policymakers think students need to learn.
Services for disabled students are extraordinarily expensive. Saddling a private school with these government-mandated services will impose a huge regulatory and crushing financial burden. Already operating on a thin margin, many small private schools could face bankruptcy.
Along with government mandates for disabled students will inevitably come mental health services, which the federal government has been pushing into schools for decades.
President George Bush’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in 2003 and the No Child Left Behind Act expanded mental health into public schools. Using “gun violence” as cover, the Obama administration allocated more than $150 million in grants to schools to set up campus mental health clinics to test K–12 students. The GOP-backed Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015 under the Obama administration further entrenched mental health into public schools through social emotional learning (SEL) that can include the use of apps for unlicensed classroom biopsychosocial mental assessments on children. Students are being psychologically manipulated to change their worldviews and to create compliant subjects for a statist government.
ESSA also established government controlled 21st-century community learning centers, which provide longer school days and year-round programs with mental health counseling services, nutrition, childcare, and more. The disability provision in the Big Beautiful Bill opens the door for private schools to become full-service community learning centers.
Eventually, Medicaid will be expanded into private schools and homeschools with further government control.
The school choice program includes homeschooling, but the language is vague so as to allow wide interpretations by an administrative state.
A national de facto national registry of homeschoolers will be created from those who accept the tax credit voucher, with federal tentacles reaching into homes.
The government already has a national database of K–12 students and has been trying to pass legislation to create a college database for several years. With tax credits, a de facto national database will be created easily, without the need for legislation.
Senator Ted Cruz has proposed a Senate version that omits the language in the House bill. He called the provision a “poison pill” aimed at disqualifying many parochial and Catholic schools from participating.
For years, critics have warned that publicly funded school choice is the camel’s nose in the tent of government control over private education. The United Nations education agency, UNESCO, envisions government takeover of private education through taxpayer-funded school choice.
The response of Senator Cruz to this? “School choice is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. Every child in America deserves access to a quality education that meets their individual needs, regardless of race, ethnicity, income, or zip code. I remain committed to leading this fight until universal school choice has become available to every American, and I call upon my colleagues to expeditiously take up and advance this legislation.”
Why does he think the results of government funding for private education will be different from the results of government funding for public schools? Government funding always brings strings and control.
With the help of Republican zealots, popular tax credits, and federal statutes, the establishment is likely to achieve its goal of bringing private education under federal control.
Carole Hornsby Haynes: Education policy analyst, curriculum consultant. www.drcarolehhaynes.com
Image: jarmoluk via Pixabay, Pixabay License.