Several states are providing families with options that meet their education and health needs as schools reopen. Amid ongoing debates around COVID-related mandates,
Florida is providing families access to the Hope Scholarship school voucher program if they find their child’s public school mask requirements to be too lax or too rigid. Arizona recently followed suit, using funding from the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan to provide income-eligible families with a
$7,000 voucher if their child’s school closes or if they disagree with a school mask mandate. Lawmakers in Tennessee are
considering similar options.
What We’re Watching
Education choice is an answer to the ongoing debates around school closures and COVID-related mandates. And as the 2021-22 school year begins, more children than ever have access to school choice options like vouchers and education savings accounts (ESAs).
The American Federation for Children’s Director of National Research
Corey DeAngelis sat down with the Daily Signal to discuss this year’s exceptional rise in school choice. As he explains, 18 states have expanded school choice options this year, with seven enacting entirely new school choice programs. Five of those programs are new education savings account options. As Corey explained:
“I think families have started to finally figure out that there isn’t any good reason to fund closed institutions when you can fund the students directly instead. Other families figured out they didn’t really like what was going on in the classroom when they got to listen in during remote learning or remote instruction over the past year.
Families are [also] fighting back against things like critical race theory or other curricular issues in the classroom that they don’t see align with their values.”
Here’s What Else We’ve Been Working On
Senior Research Fellow Jay Greene continues to raise awareness about administrative bloat in the form of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) staff on college campuses. As Jay explains in a
new piece for the Daily Signal, although college tuition continues to rise in part because of non-teaching administrative staff bloat, “the real danger of universities hiring staff who do not engage in teaching or research is not the expense, but how it corrupts the core mission of higher education.” He goes on to explain:
“Universities are no longer focused on free academic inquiry in pursuit of the truth or the development of capable adults. Instead, they have employed an army of staff who either distract from that mission by providing therapeutic coddling to
students or subvert truth-seeking by enforcing an ideological orthodoxy.”
Jay also joined
Anchored, a podcast produced by the Classical Learning Test, to discuss the history and flaws of public schooling. You can listen below.
