The timing couldn’t be more providential.
We celebrate Catholic Schools Week each year at the end of January, as families and neighborhoods throughout the nation highlight the importance of Catholic schools.
National School Choice Week coincides with it this year, emphasizing the importance of empowering parents and their children by allowing them to have educational options and by expanding school choice across the country.
And data released this week by the National Assessment of Educational Progress proves just how important it is to expand education freedom to all 50 states.
We know school choice is a vital means to financially enable parents to send their children to Catholic and other schools of their choosing.
School choice simply means that regardless of economic means or ZIP code, families should have access to the highest-quality school that best meets their children’s academic needs while supporting the values and beliefs most important to them. For the families of nearly 1.7 million children nationwide, the choice is a Catholic school.
But that choice for many families is in jeopardy, as working- and middle-class parents continue to struggle to make ends meet.
For President Trump and the new Congress, the moment is now to pass meaningful school choice legislation to reach families in all 50 states.
Legislation in Congress, the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), is the ideal way to improve and expand educational opportunity to families who lack the financial capacity for a private or religious education — and build a more equal and just society.
The ECCA would add a federal income-tax credit to generate private charitable donations to nonprofit scholarship granting organizations that distribute scholarships to children for K-12 education expenses, including private-school tuition or supplemental education services if they remain in a district government school.
The legislation is modeled after similar laws in nearly half the states, which are a tested, proven formula for success.
For many parents, if not most, their neighborhood government school meets their children’s needs. May they flourish!
Many other parents, however, find government schools inadequate to prepare their children academically, unsafe and/or undermine their family’s values and religious freedom.
That is why expanding education freedom with school choice must be one of the solutions to improve education for all children, regardless of where they attend school.
In fact, studies have shown that as school choice has expanded, students in regular public schools also had improved academic outcomes. School choice is good for all schools and all students!
I have been privileged to work with elected officials from both political parties to address children’s educational needs.
Thanks to President Trump’s leadership during the COVID pandemic, independent and religious schools had access to additional federal support to help manage that crisis. Support for parental choice has been constant in his agenda.
Funding for non-public schools was subsequently included in the American Rescue Plan thanks to the leadership of President Joe Biden and Sen. Chuck Schumer.
Though more than two dozen states expanded school choice in the pandemic’s wake, meaningful educational opportunities remain lacking for children in most of the country — especially the 18 states without laws to enable parental access to K-12 educational options.
In the Empire State, where school choice is not an option, the New York City Department of Education is spending $38,000 per public-school student each year, while the average cost per student for Catholic elementary schools in the archdiocese is just over $10,000.
Yet as test scores show, children in public schools are struggling to make progress in reading and math.
President Trump has been a vocal supporter of school choice since his first election in 2016.
As he begins his second term, he stands in the best position to be the school-choice president and deliver educational freedom for millions of families who need and desire the K-12 education that is best for their children.
A robust Educational Choice for Children Act would expand opportunities for these parents in every corner of every state to access schools of choice for their children, without the federal government involving itself further in education policy or imposing new mandates upon states and schools.
Elected officials in both parties should embrace the ECCA. That way, families from low-income to middle-class households can gain access to the quality of education for their children in the same way wealthier families already do.
That makes for a stronger, more equal education system — and a better America.
Cardinal Dolan is the archbishop of New York.
