President Donald Trump has signed a new executive order on Wednesday aimed at expanding school choice for American families, reinforcing his administration’s commitment to empowering parents in directing their children’s education.
The order comes in response to ongoing concerns about the state of K-12 public education in the United States. According to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 70% of eighth graders are below proficient in reading, while 72 percent are below proficient in math. Additionally, geographically based school assignments contribute to rising housing costs in districts with higher-performing schools, placing financial strain on millions of American families.
“When our public education system fails such a large segment of society, it hinders our national competitiveness and devastates families and communities,” said President Trump. “Parents want and deserve the best education for their children, and my administration is committed to making that a reality.”
Gov. Mike Dunleavy was effusive: “President @realDonaldTrump is serious about improving educational outcomes for all American children. Fantastic!”
The executive order establishes a framework to support state-based K-12 educational choice programs and increase competition within the education sector. Among its key provisions are:
Guidance for States: Within 60 days, the Secretary of Education will issue guidance on how states can use federal formula funds to support educational choice initiatives, ensuring that public funding follows students to their preferred schools.
Discretionary Grant Programs: The Department of Education will prioritize education freedom in its discretionary grant programs, while the Departments of Labor and Education will evaluate and recommend ways to leverage grants to expand education options for families and teachers.
Support for Low-Income Families: The Department of Health and Human Services will explore ways to use block grants, including the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDGB), to help working families afford private, charter, or faith-based schooling options.
Aid for Military Families: The Department of Defense will review mechanisms to allow military-connected families to use federal education funds for school choice, ensuring greater flexibility and quality options for children of service members.
Options for Native American Students: The Secretary of the Interior will examine how Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) school funding can be redirected to provide greater educational choice for Native American families, including access to private and charter schools.
More than a dozen states have already implemented universal K-12 scholarship programs, allowing families to choose the best educational setting for their children. Research suggests that well-designed school choice programs improve student achievement and encourage nearby public schools to enhance their performance.
Supporters of the executive order argue that expanding school choice is critical to addressing long-standing disparities in education quality. They emphasize that increasing competition will drive innovation and improve educational outcomes for students across the country.
President Trump’s executive order marks a shift in federal education policy, placing the emphasis on parental control and student success rather than on a one-size-fits-all public education system.
The administration expects initial policy changes to take effect by the 2025-26 school year, with agencies providing recommendations and implementation plans within the next 90 days.
It is a start, however, in the end the Department of Ed should be shelved and the States be responsible for the quality of their respective citizens.
Cheers,
Johnson-Ketchikan
An acute issue here in AK though is that our current legislative leadership will be opposed to this rather than accommodate and enhance. They are stuck in the ‘Old School’ mindset. You know ‘just add money and it will all get better’.
Biz 4 kids, sadder still is when you point out that more money hasn’t improved anything, they instantly reply “more money!”
Rinse
Lather
Repeat
Dismantling the Department of “Education” will take time. This will give instant relief to parents while we all wait.
I love Trump because he is the first president in my lifetime that lived up to almost all his campaign promises (not that I agree with all of them – but most I do) I’m not sure the status of any action to remove the DoE yet. We should nudge him and our representatives of this
The same could be sad about hitler, not that you would agree with all his policies either, though I guess.
Spoken like a true marxist.
What part about the pfd don’t you like?
Of course you bring up Hitler. Because that is the leftist narrative. Anyone not toeing the leftist ideology is Hitler.
Well done Mr. President, well done!??????????
A giant step in the right direction.
Excellent!
Well, there’s that pesky little issue of the Alaska state constitution. Until we change that, the union grifters in indoctrination, I mean education, will continue to destroy our future.
I believe that would only apply to state funding. Federal funding can have its own provisions.
If the Federal DOE is gone, then all funding will have to come from the state, which will then be totally subject to the provisions in the AK Constitution
That is a scary thought. I believe our state constitution regarding money spent for education violates the 1st amendment of the US constitution. While it is the current mindset to practice our AK state view; we need to change or have a US supreme court overrule our state’s verbiage. Until we get traction of diminishing the states practice, we as parents, grandparents and guardians will see the bloat of insanity continue (just add money).
The Alaska state constitution? You mean the one that says all bills must be SINGLE ISSUE? See: RCV and Prop 1.
Or that says only the legislature should define privacy? Or has the courts order abortion funding, override the governor’s line-item veto, seizes control of grand juries?
Why obey a constitution in some things and not in others? Oh, I almost forgot: liberals can violate it, conservatives cannot.
Its encouraging to see at least one commenter sees the problem realistically.
Removing the Federal Department of Indoctrination will bypass that snag.
You just know the NEA passed bricks when they saw this; the only way to break the stoopidification of America.
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How are you going to fix lazy parents though, through some amendment?
You don’t.
Just stop listening to them. I do not care how brilliant you think your child is, they failed the test, and that is the end of it.
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A child blames others for their failures, and when children (mentally) have children of their own, those parents think it is easier to blame the school system for their children’s inability to learn (otherwise known as laziness) than it is to actually take part in their child’s education. Just like leftists petitioning the government to take away from those that earned it and give it to them, instead of actually going out an earning it themselves.
Solution push homeschooling that allows funding to go to private homeschool co-ops. With schools closing the homeschool co-op could rent space in a retired school. Group of parents could gather up other parents to hire persons who may or may not hold education cert or not.
Once, along time a go schooling was done this way… The results where many were able to join together and form our nation.
We claim parent do not care ….but parents have been treated as if they are morons…..kinda funny as those morons and working and paying the bills via their ability to hold down a JOB to pay the taxes!
Yes, there are rotten parents but remember there are rotten teachers too! Children are not property of the NEA. The teachers coming up and have in the last 20 years and have gotten their college degree that are not the same quality of the teachers from before. When the teachers got a woke education the children get a woke education.
These teachers are no Bob Bird!
Thank you Suzanne your awesome ma’am & manda gerson let it be know judge Gleason was the ill begotten clown doing this. I called please all call & let her know she is fake 907 677 6253
Such a nice inclusive photo for a story intro! Was it created by Gemini?
Competition makes businesses improve. If you cannot stay ahead, and keep your product more desirable than your competitor, you will lose customers and eventually go out of business.
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Why should education be any different? Why should a parent send their children to a school based on their address instead of based on how well the school education is? Tie the school’s budget to the number of students enrolled. Better schools get more students, and more funding. Lower quality schools get less. I wonder if the school administration and teachers will want to up the quality of their education if their pay is tied to it.
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Improving education is absolutely essential, and whether you like it or not, money is a strong incentive to get off your duff and do the right thing. But, with the Federal funding, and the NEA, teachers and administrative staff get paid the same regardless of outcomes. (Or essentially the same, close enough for this comment.)
You never truly have a clue. One of those educated buffoons, that came from another country over here, I assume. I know teachers that teach their a** off yet, They’re students still have low test scores compared to the national average. I can guarantee you that it’s not their fault.
So, what exactly do they do in other countries? How is it their students are getting a solid and useable education, but US students are not?
And, why is the US education system incapable of emulating that system?
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Hint… it has nothing to do with the teachers. It has everything to do with the way schools are funded, and the influence of the unions.
Legitimate question for you Greg:
“I know teachers that teach their a** off yet, They’re students still have low test scores compared to the national average.”
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These teachers who teach their a** off, do they pass the students anyway? Do the students with the low test scores get moved to the next grade level?
When is the last time they held a student back? Or put a student into summer school to retake a course?
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I am going to bet the answer is never.
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And, why would they not fail a student? Because their funding is based on passing grades, not on actually demonstrating the students learned anything at all. So, the school administration likely forces the teachers to turn a blind eye to the students that are failing in order to keep the federal/state dollars coming in.
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Remove those dollars from the equation. Give the parents the ability to send their child to the school of their choice. Now the school admin has to compete for those dollars. Simply moving the children though the system ceases to be the goal, actually educating them becomes the goal.
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Fastest way to make that happen is choice.
Still waiting on that clue, Greg.
I asked a legitimate question, and you fled.
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Does not say much about the substance of your comments here.
ASD better wise up to what’s happening..It’s been their failing propositions that has caused many problems in this city. All their failed propositions and their WOKE teaching has been what caused our problems..I’m still wanting to know JUST how much $$$ they wasted on buying and obtaining all the woke educational materials. It would be amazing if someone would search that out, then subtract that from any of the upcoming funds and money they are trying to beg for in their financial plans to fill their “buckets.
Geographies like Mat-Su and Kenai Peninsula, hamstrung with transportation and busing realities, are held hostage to school locations. If you can’t transport, you’re stuck.
Homeschool removes that pesky transportation issue.
It removes a lot of things, some good, some bad.
Plus, Mat Su and Kenai shouldn’t build out so far away from everything in the first place.
Yeah, let’s have everyone live in a 15 minutes city, right.
The dream of the WEF.
Control, control, control.
Pick a lane.
OK.
But, what does that have to do with the overwhelming majority of US residents who are within a short distance of any number of schools. In Anchorage there are how many different grades schools? Amplify that for any other city/metropolitan area.
You build an education system to cover the vast majority of the students, then make special accommodations for the outliers. Forcing an area like metro NY, DC, or LA to follow the same system as the Mat-Su valley is the problem.
Those that can’t do it anymore teach…fixed it for you.
Let me correct you shop sweep. Teaching and government work are for those cannot make it in the private sector.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I am already getting sick and tired of all this pure fascism and the attacks on “our democracy” from Donald Trump.
(/sarc)
What a revolutionary concept, in a “free” country, the concept that parents choose the best path for their children, not the state.
This won’t fly in Alaska, the home of the craven, ignorant, state and federal grant dependent. (How is the freeze on federal grants going for what we define as a “free enterprise” system?)
We are told we can’t do anything to improve our youths’ futures, due to our state “constitution”, the epitomy of imperialistic/colonial dogma.
The irony of the level of education of the men who wrote the real American Constitution compared to the limp wristed ignorant apologists for a failed system today is stark.
President Trump mentioned previously that school choice must occur in time for the 25-26 school year, which for most homeschool families, or families confirming public or private sectors with their enrollment, needs to occur by July 1st, 2025. Considering how quickly Trump is cleaning up our government, this is totally feasible… knowing previous Alaskan bureaucracy in the education sector, that is a different story. Our family would like to see an article published on when School Choice will really begin for Alaskan families. We would also like to see how the Administration and State of Alaska in particular plans to hold public sector, private sector and homeschool programs equally accountable, in terms of their spending, their curriculum and their outcomes. We’ve never understood why a public school teacher can, as an example have donuts reimbursed through the district and yet an Abeka chapter book is not reimbursable through any homeschool program. There are significant disparities between what is allowed and considered acceptable even between homeschool programs, one program offers an allotment of this, while another offers half of that. Programs continually chalk this numerical disparity up to services provided and costs associated with that program, but the reality remains quite different. Whether a child is enrolled in a neighborhood public school, a religious private school or a community homeschool program, each student allotment should be the same.
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