President Trump signs executive order bolstering school choice – USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday directing federal agencies to find ways to prioritize school choice programs, which often use taxpayer money to help parents enroll their kids in nonpublic schools.
The order instructs the federal Education Department to favor school choice programs when awarding discretionary grants. It also mandates that the Education Department and Department of Health and Human Services issue guidance on how states can use certain grants to encourage families to pursue educational alternatives.
It requires the Interior secretary to find ways to use federal money to help families with children in Bureau of Indian Education schools enroll elsewhere. It makes a similar recommendation for the Defense secretary, who must propose a related plan for military families.
The decree delivers a win to the controversial school choice movement after it took several bruising defeats in the November election. Voters in Colorado and Kentucky rejected proposals to enshrine support for school choice in state law, and Nebraskans decided to repeal a school voucher program.
However, more state legislatures in recent years have embraced the universal school choice movement, and parents have increasingly turned to options beyond public schools since COVID-19 shuttered classrooms nationwide and prompted stubborn learning loss.
Trump heavily prioritized nonpublic schools on the campaign trail. His policy platform commended states that have passed school choice measures and urged parents to “send their children to the public, private, or religious school that best suits their needs, their goals, and their values.”
Conservatives have long backed universal school choice policies, arguing that parents should be able to send their kids to any school they choose, even using taxpayer funds. Many Democrats and teachers unions say that diverting money from public schools unfairly disadvantages all students.
The order comes after data released this week showed younger students’ reading skills have tanked since the pandemic, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress.
The heads of the nation’s largest teachers unions blasted Trump’s order on Wednesday. Becky Pringle, who leads the National Education Association, accused Trump of illegally funneling federal dollars to private schools. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, echoed those sentiments, calling the president’s announcement a “likely illegal scheme to diminish choice and deny classrooms resources to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.”
Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.

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