INSIDE COMPLIANCE

Almost 10% of K-12 students – approximately 4.7 million children – were enrolled in private schools as of the fall of 2021. Families today are increasingly attracted to private schools amid rising concerns about the academic quality and safety of public schools. However, a key barrier to private schools is the cost, with 59% of parents stating they would send their children to private schools if vouchers could cover full tuition. In an effort to ease this burden, the Trump administration passed the “Educational Choice for Children Act” (the Act). This program allows parents to receive a tax credit up to $1,700 for donations made to scholarship granting organizations, increasing families’ ability to afford private schooling. However, the Act does nothing to help or subsidize families in the public school system, where a vast majority of American students still reside. Thus, with the Act, the federal government may be lessening the financial burden of private schooling, but it is doing so at the expense of public-school funding.