National support for school choice on the rise

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According to recent findings from the Friedman Foundation’s 2014 Schooling in America Survey, 74% of  Americans have a pessimistic outlook on the federal government’s involvement in K-12 education. The survey also found 58 percent of Americans think that K-12 education has gotten off on the “wrong track.”

And who can blame them? In Kentucky alone, there are failing schools and suffocating bureaucracy throughout the state standing in the way of our children’s education.

Along with this new insight on the public opinion on government involvement in K-12 education, the survey also found that 56% support Education Savings Accounts, and universal access to school choice also saw increases in public support.

Like the charter schools that the Bluegrass Institute supports, ESAs are an alternative option to the traditional public school system and, like charter schools, can be used to empower families to assume more control on their children’s education.

EASs allow parents to use a portion of the funds the state would have spent on their child in the public system toward a variety of educational options, such as private schooling, tutoring, and special education therapies. Families could even roll over unused funds into a college savings account for their children.

In fact, Heritage Foundation fellow Lindsey Burke found that in Arizona (the first state to adopt ESAs), over one-third of families used the accounts to customize their child’s education. Other than personally tailored educational options, ESAs have the added benefit of knowing and understanding funding allocation per per-pupil.

For additional study findings on ESAs and school-choice opinion, check out this article from the Daily Signal.

--Elaina Waters, BIPPS intern