Students suffering academically and emotionally from COVID-19 is not a new story. Parents throughout the nation understood just months into the pandemic that their children were being harmed by public school closures and forced virtual learning. Consider some of the findings of the IES survey:

MOM IN LIBERAL STATE URGES PARENTS TO DITCH PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOR HOMESCHOOLING

To climb back from this learning loss will take much more than money, which the U.S. Congress already provided aplenty with nearly $200 billion added for K-12 education during its pandemic spending spree in 2020 and 2021.

Since 2021, more than half the states enacted or expanded education freedom policies to financially equip parents to choose their own school or education service. A handful of states are stand-outs by providing education savings accounts for most parents of school-age children, including in Arizona, West Virginia, Iowa, and Utah.

Still, more must be done to remedy the learning loss documented in the IES findings. If Congress and the Biden administration can add nearly a quarter trillion dollars to education, they should also empower parents to shop for better, more responsive, and accountable K-12 education for their children at a small fraction of that expense.

The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) proposed in Congress by Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Rep. Adrian Smith of Nebraska would enhance tax incentives for charitable donations to generate up to $10 billion in privately funded K-12 scholarship opportunities across the 50 states. It requires no new federal money and up to two million children would benefit.

The widespread availability of these scholarships would turn every parent into a consumer of education, able to potentially "shop" for another school or education service to meet their child’s needs.

Importantly, scholarships made available by the ECCA will fund tuition and other education services akin to 529 plans that exist for higher education, including tutoring to address learning loss, online courses, special needs services, educational software and more. For many parents, these supplemental services would fill the void in their child’s education if they chose to remain in a district school.

The ECCA gives parents a desired alternative and would force school boards and teachers’ unions to face a new reality of having to respond favorably to, and compete for, parent customers or risk a school exodus. This shift in the power dynamic toward parents is what boards and unions fear so much, which is why they oppose education freedom policies at every turn.

The K-12 public education system in the U.S. is a vast monopoly of underperformance at exorbitant expense. Systemic change is needed if we are going to rescue millions of children from learning loss and curriculum distractions pervasive in district-run schools.

Fortunately, parents and legislators throughout the country are acting by expanding education freedom for K-12 families, and it’s time for Congress join in. With the latest survey findings by the IES, there is no time to lose since America’s future much depends on today’s classrooms.

Peter Murphy is Senior Advisor for Policy at Invest in Education.