The 50 States of Education Policy: A continued push for school choice

This latest column focuses on some of the key takeaways from what's happened in state policy during the past month. Previous installments of The 50 States of Education Policy, along with an interactive map that breaks down policies in each state, can be found here.While school choice and school choice-friendly policies aren't new, there's been a lot of talk around these topics in April. In the month after President Donald Trump's Fiscal Year 2020 budget request was introduced, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos began visiting states to campaign for one of the administration's main education proposals: Education Freedom Scholarships (EFS). And as states continue making their way through their 2019 legislative sessions, lawmakers in several regions are clashing over measures that promote school choice.Below is a recap of the major state-related school choice policy news that took place this month: This school choice-promoting proposal — under which taxpayers can choose to contribute in exchange for dollar-for-dollar federal tax credits capped at $5 billion annually — was first announced in February. The idea behind these scholarships is that the credits would be for private donations to scholarship-granting organizations, and states could use the funds for initiatives including dual enrollment, private schools and homeschooling.