School Choice

I define school choice as students finding and thriving at a school that meets their needs. This can be a neighborhood public school, a (public) charter school, a private school, traditional unfunded homeschooling, or using an Education Freedom Account.

In my first term, I took a major role in crafting and passing the Education Freedom Account program. This allows the per-student state funding to follow the student to any education option. While opponents would say that students who weren’t in public schools when they signed up for an EFA are “taking away money from our schools” that couldn’t be further from the truth.

According to Fox News, the average family is spending about $1,000 more a month to live like they did just 3 years ago. Without the $4,100 basic grant (plus $2,300 for those who qualify for free and reduced lunch) many students in private or home school would need to return to their local public school. While this would return their personal state funding, local taxpayers would need to come up with another $15,000+ for each returning student.

While only 50 students in Derry are currently in the EFA program, knowing that this resource is available has helped many parents I’ve talked with understand that they have options when dealing with challenges at the local public school. Most stay, but knowing there is another options means that they CHOOSE the local school.