Legislation has been introduced in Congress that would expand federal involvement in education, including private and home education, in the form of “Education Savings Accounts” (ESAs).
ESAs are special accounts used by the government to give parents “public funds” (i.e., government money) to get their children out of government-run public or charter schools and either place them in private school or homeschool them. The problem with these bills is that they would further entangle the federal government — unconstitutionally — in education and potentially threaten educational freedom by shackling parents and religious schools to government funding and the various strings attached.
Several such bills have been introduced in the current Congress. These include:
- H.R. 571, the “SCHOOL Act of 2023”: This bill would allow federal education funds “to follow the student … whether learning in person or remotely, to the public school, private school, or home school they attend.”
- H.R. 463 and S. 105, the “Children Have Opportunities in Classrooms Everywhere Act”: These bills would allow 529 plans (qualified tuition plans currently used for college expenses) to be used for elementary and secondary school expenses, including in private and home schools, and requires federal funding to be used for such plans.
Although these bills might sound good, they actually represent a major — and potentially disastrous — expansion of federal meddling in private and home education. The New American has previously reported on the danger that vouchers and ESAs pose to educational freedom.
The U.S. Constitution does not give the federal government any role in education, and the Tenth Amendment affirms that education policy lies with the states and the people. If Congress is to abide by the Constitution, it should enact legislation getting the federal government out of education — not expanding its involvement.
Furthermore, when the federal government uses taxpayer money to pay for private and home schools, it can easy attach strings to such funding. If parents and religious schools become dependent on federal funds, they will have little choice but to eventually accept the federal government’s stipulations, including those mandating “woke” curriculum and other leftist policies.
Finally, vouchers and ESAs are closely connected to the United Nations and its push to indoctrinate children with international-socialist ideology. For example, the UN’s education agency, UNESCO, has advocated subsidizing private schools with tax money in order to control them — i.e., impose the same leftist standards on them as on public schools — thus enabling the implementation of the UN’s totalitarian Agenda 2030 scheme.
Congress would be wise to reject H.R. 571, H.R. 463, and S. 105, and instead enforce the U.S. Constitution by advancing legislation that gets the federal government completely out of education.
To urge your U.S. representative and senators to oppose federal “ESA” bills, visit The John Birch Society’s legislative alert here. To view the JBS’s “Save Our Children” action project page, click here.
