In 2024, Ģ����Ƶ legislators are considering an expansion to Ģ����Ƶ’s Tax Credit Scholarship program. Through this program, businesses and individuals toward private school scholarships for K-12 students enrolled in public schools. In return, they receive a dollar-for-dollar state income tax credit.

In 2022, the state Legislature raised the program cap by $20 million, bringing it up to $120 million from $100 million. But that increase hasn’t proven large enough to keep up with communities’ positive response. Lawmakers are now looking at a that would raise the total program cap to $200 million, and expand the number of students the program can serve. 

“It’s clear that demand for the program is strong. The existing $120 million cap was met on the very first day of applications in 2023,” noted Buzz Brockway, Vice President of Public Policy at the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity. “Ģ����Ƶ families are demanding more options, and lawmakers would be wise to take notice.”

Here are a few reasons why raising the cap on Ģ����Ƶ’s tax credit scholarship program would help students, parents, and the state’s overall education system:

1. The Ģ����Ƶ Tax Credit Scholarship program makes private school access more equitable.

Private schools are often an education option available to families who can afford them. Through Ģ����Ƶ’s Tax Credit Scholarship, lower and middle-income families can get financial support to access private schools as a viable option when the local public school isn’t the best fit for their child.

But what about families in rural areas? According to a 2017 by The Brookings Institute, 69% of families living in rural areas have a private school within 10 miles. Increasing the program cap for Ģ����Ƶ’s tax credit scholarships would help rural Ģ����Ƶ families in this situation. For those that aren’t, there’s still a benefit: Growing the tax credit scholarship program is a way to encourage more private schools to launch and fill education gaps in areas where options are fewer and farther between. 

2. Raising the program cap makes it possible to serve more kids.

Currently 500,000 Ģ����Ƶ students are in schools that are underperforming or simply aren’t meeting their specific needs. Increasing the program cap means more families could enjoy the flexibility to consider one of Ģ����Ƶ’s when seeking out a school that matches their kid’s learning style, their personal values, or other preferences. In 2021, were awarded to eligible students. Imagine how many more kids we could help if Ģ����Ƶ’s tax credit scholarship program expanded to $200 million. 

3. Expanding our tax credit scholarship program would bring Ģ����Ƶ up-to-date with other states.

Florida, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Iowa, and Nevada have all taken note of the growing popularity of tax credit scholarships and have responded by on their various programs. Whether it’s tax credit scholarships or other options like Education Savings Accounts, the momentum to embrace more education choice programs is building across , raising the question of whether Ģ����Ƶ will keep up.

With Ģ����Ƶ’s Tax Credit Scholarship, kids in Atlanta’s crime-ridden neighborhoods have found a safe place to go to school, allowing them to improve academically and pursue their dreams.

4. It’s one option to relieve parents’ frustration with one-size-fits-all education options.

A recent poll of 5,000 parents, conducted by the Harris Poll, revealed that 20% of parents switched schools for their kids during the pandemic. The pandemic itself is a tired topic, but the trend it introduced in education isn’t: Over the last two years, parents’ desire for more education options has skyrocketed as many of them realize that traditional public schools don’t work for every kid. 

By investing in educational choice programs, we can guarantee families access to a variety of stellar learning experiences that help their children reach great heights—academically, socially, vocationally…the list goes on. Ģ����Ƶ’s tax credit scholarship program makes private schools one of these meaningful options, regardless of where families live or how much they earn. 

5. Increasing education tax credits gets more businesses and individuals involved in our kids’ futures.

A quality education, tailored to a student’s unique needs, prepares kids for the workplace, for community involvement, and for life. That’s why education is more than a parental concern—it should be a community priority. We all benefit when kids have access to the education option that will help them become healthy, successful citizens, employees, relatives, and friends as they grow up. Ģ����Ƶ’s Tax Credit Scholarship gives our communities—both businesses and taxpayers—a way to directly invest in K-12 education and ensure bright futures for our students. By raising the program cap, we can expand the investment opportunities available to current donors and to new businesses and individuals who want to get involved.  

Related Reading: Ģ����Ƶ School Choice In the News

Ģ����Ƶ students need more schooling choices (GCO in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

(Atlanta Journal-Constitution) 

(The Center Square)

(Washington Examiner)

The post 5 Reasons Why It’s a Good Idea to Expand Ģ����Ƶ’s Tax Credit Scholarship appeared first on For Opportunity.

Key Points

• As of June, 35 states and D.C. have not recovered the number of lost jobs
• The labor force has shrunk despite population growth.
• Its stated goal of the Federal Reserve remains the same–to reduce inflation to its 2% target, meaning it will take steps to prevent the price level from coming back down. This bad policy goal will burden the working class and the poor and retired persons the most.

It may not matter if federal policy does not change.

We’ve seen some back-to-back encouraging news within the last few weeks. The Employment Situation Report for July showed that the United States finally recovered the number of its lost jobs from the start of the pandemic, and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate for July was essentially zero. But digging a little deeper to put the news into perspective reveals real concerns that stagflation will not end anytime soon.

The States Who Are Driving the Job Recovery

On the jobs front, yes, it’s true we’ve recovered the number of lost jobs benchmarked to February 2020 before the drastic impact on the labor market from COVID-19. This indicates we’re on the mend, but the job recovery process has not been the “V” shape hoped for at the beginning of the pandemic, one that would have meant a robust job recovery.��

Two-and-a-half years later, the civilian non-institutionalized population base that feeds the labor force grew by 4.8 million. Our own ARIMA Model job forecast shows we are approximately 5.8 million jobs short of where we would have been had the pandemic not happened.��

But this is not the case for all 50 states. Astoundingly, four states—Montana, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming—have matched or nearly matched their pre-pandemic ARIMA Model forecasts, effectively eliminating any impact from the pandemic on the number of lost jobs.��

In the meantime, the national job recovery to pre-pandemic levels is driven probably by just 15 states who already recovered their number of lost jobs prior to the nation as a whole. These states are Utah, Idaho, Texas, Montana, North Carolina, Ģ����Ƶ, Florida, Tennessee, Arizona, South Dakota, Colorado, Arkansas, Indiana, and Nevada.��

As of June, the remaining 35 states and D.C. have not recovered the number of lost jobs. We have to wait another week before we know whether another state slipped onto the list of leading states that helped tip the balance for the national July data.��

According to our analysis, a common feature of the leading states is that they tend to have more than the other states do. Incidentally, and for explanatory reasons and not for the purpose of getting political, all but three of the 15 leading states have given political control to the governor’s office and both chambers of the state legislature to the Republican Party.

Jobs Versus People Employed��

One problem with job data is that the dataset allows for double counting. If we want to count the number of people employed, it paints a different picture.��

The Current Population Survey shows the U.S. is still more than half a million workers short when compared to February 2020. In fact, we had fewer employed persons in July than March of this year, using seasonally adjusted data.��

The reason is that the labor force has shrunk despite population growth. This can be seen with the 62.1% labor force participation rate that is more than a percentage point below where it stood in February 2020.

This means that the 3.5% unemployment rate—which now matches its pre-pandemic level—is misleading. The shrinkage of the labor force is distorting the meaning of the metric.

Taken together on a national scale, jobs have recovered but the number of employed persons has not. This can mean only one thing. More people are working multiple jobs to make ends meet.��

Inflation versus the Price Level

July’s CPI ever-so-slightly decreased. It ticked down 0.2% at an annualized rate–a welcome change from the past 25 months. Just to keep this in perspective, the price level nonetheless increased 14.1% since the start of the pandemic. But there is no need to tell this to average consumers who have been feeling it in their pocketbooks.��

Disturbingly, the Federal Reserve shows no interest in doing something about the –and who isn’t even discussing it. Its stated goal remains the same–to reduce inflation to its 2% target, meaning it will take steps to prevent the price level from coming back down. This bad policy goal will burden the working class and the poor and retired persons the most.

“Disturbingly, the Federal Reserve shows no interest in doing something about the –and who isn’t even discussing it. Its stated goal remains the same–to reduce inflation to its 2% target, meaning it will take steps to prevent the price level from coming back down. This bad policy goal will burden the working class and the poor and retired persons the most.”

“Disturbingly, the Federal Reserve shows no interest in doing something about the –and who isn’t even discussing it. Its stated goal remains the same–to reduce inflation to its 2% target, meaning it will take steps to prevent the price level from coming back down. This bad policy goal will burden the working class and the poor and retired persons the most.”

Fiscal and Regulatory Policy

The Federal Reserve does not stand alone with its bad policy. Congress and the Administration are just as guilty, if not more so.

Excessive fiscal spending also drives up the price level. Worse, increasing business taxes will pull�� resources from businesses. These resources are needed to produce goods and services that we all use and enjoy. It also enables these very same businesses to pay workers and compensate investors, and it leads to more economic growth and prosperity. Likewise, more excessive regulatory restrictions have similar negative effects on people and the economy.

Increasing business taxes and regulating businesses even more at this time will not help keep prices down. Rather, a good portion of these higher costs will be passed onto consumers.�� And they will be passed on to consumers to the degree that individual businesses are able to do so. If businesses can’t pass all or even some of those costs on to consumers, then they will be forced to make more difficult decisions, such as cutting back on the number of employees or suspending pay raises to employees. Profits will clearly suffer that may cause a few businesses to scale back or exit the industry altogether. These consequential actions all aggravate stagnation. Add in the price increases and we get more stagflation, not less.

Unfortunately, the President just signed into law the erroneously named Inflation Reduction Act that will do nothing about inflation, but it will hike business taxes and increase regulations that will only worsen the economic situation.��

Congress and the Administration need to start following the lead from the states who are doing it right. Only pro- growth policies relying on innovation and production organically sprouted from within the economy will help us out of this mess, and it won’t work if politicians think that means taking money from successful businesses or imposing new mandates on others or picking the winners and losers in the economy.

The post A glimmer of good economic news? Maybe not appeared first on For Opportunity.

Is there any reason not to cheer? Ģ����Ƶ’s unemployment rate dropped to 4.1 percent in May.��

Here are three reasons why this looks good for Ģ����Ƶ.��

First, the unemployment rate is declining, giving optimism that the economy is bouncing back from the pandemic.

Second, there were only two periods in recorded history when Ģ����Ƶ’s unemployment rate was this low or lower. Starting from 1976—the extent of available data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on unemployment rates for the states—the first period was between October 1998 and July 2001 when the rate reached as low as 3.4 percent. This period occurred after the long economic expansion of the 1990s.��

The other period—from April 2018 to the start of the pandemic—just occurred with Donald Trump in the White House. During this period, Ģ����Ƶ broke its best record by achieving 3.3 percent.

Third, Ģ����Ƶ’s rate is the 16th lowest in the country, beating out 34 other states. For comparison, the United States as a whole has a rate of 5.8 percent rate, considerably higher than Ģ����Ƶ’s.

But wait. Is the unemployment rate artificially low?

While optimism is merited, it is important to put the unemployment numbers in perspective.

Unemployment percentages do not capture those who do not participate in the labor force. According to the BLS, anyone not employed who had not actively looked for a job during the prior four weeks is not part of the labor force. Therefore, any person temporarily not looking for work is not accounted for when the BLS calculates the official unemployment rate. Especially now with all the repercussions of the pandemic, all those potential workers who have been sitting on the sidelines for the last four weeks are simply not counted.

The behavior of labor force participation is a loose link for unemployment numbers. Normally, when economic times are good, sidelined workers and even retirees come back into the labor force, which can push the unemployment rate up. When times are bad, the opposite happens. Workers drop out of the labor force, artificially lowering the unemployment rate.

During the depth of the pandemic, and as expected, the labor force participation rate in Ģ����Ƶ dropped—to 59.4 percent to be precise, compared to 62.9 percent just prior to the pandemic. In terms of real people, there were an estimated 260,575 fewer workers participating in the labor force—who were not counted among the unemployed, to emphasize the point. Participation bounced back some to 61.7 percent, but still there are 40,934 fewer workers in the labor force.

Other ways to measure it

BLS’s U-6 labor underutilization metric is another way to shed light on unemployment. It adds to the unemployed those discouraged and other “marginally attached” workers as well as part-time workers wanting full-time work but cannot find it.��

Nationally, the U-6 rate hit a historic high of 22.9 percent in April 2020 representing 36.3 million people. It has since dropped to 10.2 percent representing 16.5 million people. However, in the months prior to the pandemic, the rate was at historic lows—in fact, as low as 6.8 percent. Obviously, while 10.2 percent is far better than 22.9 percent, it is significantly worse than 6.8 percent, representing a difference of 5.3 million workers.

Unfortunately, monthly U-6 data is not available for the states, making any comparison difficult. The BLS currently publishes only experimental U-6 state data averaged over a year’s time.

More useful for the states is the Nonfarm Employment estimates from BLS’s Current Employment Statistics survey. Only two states—Utah & Idaho—have caught up with employment from where they were in February 2020 before the pandemic hit. In contrast, the U.S as a whole is still 5% behind. Ģ����Ƶ ranks 16th among the states and is 4.0 % behind. Hawaii (-14.8%), New York (-9.6%), and Nevada (-8.6%) are the three states furthest behind.��

If we use standard economic ARIMA Model time-series forecasting to estimate where employment would have been absent the pandemic, no state is back on track. The United States is 6.8% behind, and Ģ����Ƶ ranks near the middle in 27th place at −6.1%. Utah and Idaho lead the pack being the furthest ahead, while Hawaii, Nevada, New York, California, and Massachusetts trail the pack.

Observations on state differences and policies

In viewing the differences in employment among the states, the more rural states appear to be doing better. The states more dependent on tourism appear to be doing worse. State governments that implemented less severe lockdowns appear to be doing better. To test these observations, we will be running regression analyses to tease out any correlations. We will post the results when completed.

In the meantime, it is important for government to adopt policies that will help businesses to rebound and make it easier for startups. The goal should be not to just lower unemployment but also to bring those sidelined workers back into the labor force.

Erik Randolph is the Director of Research at the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity.

The post Putting Ģ����Ƶ’s employment numbers in perspective appeared first on For Opportunity.

By Erik Randolph

Don’t be fooled by Ģ����Ƶ’s unemployment rate. While many are breathing a sigh of relief that barely one in ten Ģ����Ƶn’s are out of work, the reality is much worse.

Ģ����Ƶ’s unemployment rate (U-3) dropped to 9.7% last month—according to official numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released today.����

This number is adjusted for seasonal fluctuations, if that still makes sense given the current conditions. Otherwise, Ģ����Ƶ’s rate would be 9.5%, relatively close due to the time of the year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly makes adjustments to smooth out the data from the impact of seasonal employment, such as temporary employment during the Christmas season, teenagers working as summer camp counselors, or landscaping jobs dependent on the growing season. The smoothing out of data is intended to help economists detect trends more easily.��

The sense of relief comes from more dismal expectations that the unemployment rate itself could have been much worse—especially considering the unprecedented havoc on the economy from COVID-19—and from the encouraging news that Ģ����Ƶ is among the 38 states where the rates are coming down.��

��Ģ����Ƶ’s unemployment rate is among the lowest of the states. The nation’s rate was 13.3% (adjusted). Three states—Nevada, Michigan, and Hawaii—had seasonally adjusted rates of 25.3%, 22.6%, and 21.2%, respectively.��

However, one in ten workers unemployed is still very high. There were 475,338 unemployed Ģ����Ƶns last month (seasonally adjusted). That number was 161,147 in February. The state went from a historic low unemployment rate of 3.1% (adjusted) to a record high of 12.6% (adjusted) in just two months.��

The Loose Link

The situation is actually worse than what the unemployment numbers show. First, there is a loose relationship between employment and the labor force. The Bureau counts only those who are employed or actively looking for work as part of the labor force.��

When the economy does well and jobs are more plentiful, the labor force grows in size because more people decide to enter or reenter the labor force. However, when the economy grows sluggish and jobs become harder to find, the opposite happens: the labor force shrinks.

The labor force participation rate demonstrates this well-known phenomenon. The chart below illustrates this relationship in Ģ����Ƶ. By definition, the labor force participation rate shows the percentage of workers in the labor force to the potential population of those who could be in the labor force, defined as all individuals age 16 and older who are not institutionalized, such as in prison, and—as the Bureau of Labor Statistics defines it—not in the military.��

Of course, there are other factors at work. The aging population is pushing down the participation rate. An issue of great concern is the increasing proportion of individuals in their prime working age who have dropped out of the labor force altogether. This has been a topic of study from across the political spectrum, and recessions seem to only aggravate the trend.��

The size of the recent labor force loss is astounding. A record number of 262,577 Ģ����Ƶns dropped out of the labor force in April. This is the seasonally adjusted number. The unadjusted number is 286,733.��

The labor force bounced back just 0.1% in May, but still the net effect is that 256,208 individuals dropped out since February.��

What this all means is that 570,399 Ģ����Ƶns either lost employment or dropped out of the labor force since February. If you add back in the 161,147 who were unemployed in February, there are at least 731,546 workers either unemployed or who dropped out, and 751,116 workers if we use unadjusted numbers.��

However, we are still missing one part of the analysis. Prior to February, the labor force was growing and grew at a rate of 1.6% from the prior year (unadjusted). This implies that the labor force number should have grown over the last three months, perhaps to 5,208,019 in May (adjusted). This would make the combined unemployment/labor force problem closer to 15.0% (adjusted), or 14.8% (unadjusted).

��

It Gets Even Worse

The official unemployment rate does not capture everyone, including those who are working part-time but want to work full-time. For this, we must turn to the alternative measurement of labor underutilization known as U-6, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ broadest metric. The national number jumped from 7.4% in February to 22.4% in April, and back down to 20.7% in May.��

Unfortunately, the Bureau does not publish U-6 on a monthly basis for the states. For statistical reliability reasons, they only provide annual rolling averages each quarter year.��

Most recently, Ģ����Ƶ’s annual rolling average U-6, ending the first quarter of 2020, was 6.7% compared to the national rolling average of 7.2%. This implies that Ģ����Ƶ’s U-6 is probably around 19.3%. Combining this number with those who dropped out of the labor force yields an impact well above 20%, probably around 25%, or one-in-four Ģ����Ƶns adversely affected, instead of just one in ten.

Note on Sources: All data came from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, except for the identification of the recessions that came from the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research.����

Erik Randolph is Director of Research at the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity. This article reflects his calculations, analysis and opinion and does not necessarily reflect that of the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity.

To learn more about what Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity is doing to help get Ģ����Ƶns back to work check out our initiative.��

��

��

��

��

��

The post Ģ����Ƶ’s Real 2020 Unemployment Number appeared first on For Opportunity.

As a teacher, Julie Young knew her grandson was going to need help outside of the classroom. He had been diagnosed with dyslexia, and he struggled to “retain anything he saw on paper,” Julie said.

Julie and her family live in Arizona, where students with special needs are among the children eligible for education savings accounts. Julie applied for an account and saw results almost immediately.

She used the account to enroll him in occupational therapy, and “within a matter of weeks, I noticed a huge improvement,” Julie says. “His OT helped him memorize his multiplication tables by using silly songs. Every day he made gains in areas that never seemed to stick before,” she says.

, the state deposits a portion of a child’s funds from the state education formula into a private account that parents use to buy education products and services for their children. Lawmakers in six states have enacted such laws, including Ģ����Ƶ’s neighbors: Florida, Tennessee, and Mississippi (Nevada and North Carolina legislators have also passed legislation).

The accounts are distinct from private school scholarships because parents and students can select multiple learning options simultaneously. It’s not unusual for account holders to find a personal tutor for their child, enroll their student in education therapy services, and pay for instructional materials to be used at home. Research from finds that approximately one-third of account holders use education savings accounts for a set of learning options. More than 40 percent of Florida account holders do so.

Parents want to be able to challenge their students and are prepared to customize their child’s learning experience. explained that doctors had diagnosed her son as being on the autism spectrum, and despite special services in a district school, he had not learned to talk. After using an account to select a speech therapist of their choosing, “Nathan has learned to talk and he loves learning to spell and even reading books… He’s using complete sentences and even asking and answering questions on a regular basis.”

In Florida, a mom of three adopted children and two biological children uses an account (called Gardiner Scholarships) for her adopted daughter, Elizabeth, to buy instructional materials for use in the home. In an interview, the mom said, “I could reinforce what was and wasn’t happening in the classroom.” Today, Elizabeth has returned to a district school, and her mom says she “wouldn’t be where we are without the intense therapies that I was able to do because of the Gardiner scholarship.”

Now Ģ����Ƶ lawmakers are considering a proposal that would make accounts available to children with special needs, students from low income families, adopted children, students in active duty military families, and children who have been bullied in school.

Experiences from other states demonstrate that students from all walks of life can benefit from the accounts. Arizona lawmakers enacted the nation’s first law in 2011 for children with special needs but have expanded student eligibility since. By the 2015-2016 school year, approximately 40 percent of account holders were children that met other eligibility criteria: 15 percent of account holders were students previously assigned to failing schools; 11 percent were children from military families; 8 percent were adopted students; and 6 percent were Native American students living on tribal lands.

As for Julie, an education savings account has allowed her to set new goals for her grandson. “My grandson understands his limitations,” she says. “He has a long road to go before all of his basic skills are mastered, but I feel confident that so long as we can… [meet] his individual needs, he will succeed in anything he chooses to do.”

Every Ģ����Ƶ parent or loved one wants to have the same vision for success for their child. The education savings account proposal puts these aspirations within reach for thousands of students across the state. Every family wants to have an opportunity like this.

The post ESAs change lives of Arizona and Florida students appeared first on For Opportunity.

At the end of July, the Nevada Supreme Court on the state’s nascent law. In 2015, Sen. Scott Hammond sponsored SB 302, and Gov. Brian Sandoval’s signature made all 450,000 Nevada public school students eligible to apply for an account. The ACLU filed a lawsuit to take children’s educational choices away shortly after the law’s passage. The group charges that the accounts violate the state constitution (a group of parents filed another suit taking away parents’ ability to choose how their children learn, saying that the accounts would be illegally funded from a state source dedicated to public schools).

Nevada’s account law is the first such law to allow all public school students the opportunity to use an account to buy a variety of educational products and services. is no longer rare in the U.S., but many of the laws that give parents options between public and private schools are limited to students that meet select criteria. For example, Tennessee and Mississippi’s education savings accounts, also enacted in 2015, are only available to children with special needs. As many Ģ����Ƶ parents may know, the Peach State has a private school scholarship program exclusively for children with special needs, while Louisiana and Ohio have private school voucher options for children from failing schools. The situation is similar across more than two dozen states.

A ruling in favor of parents and children from Nevada’s Supreme Court would boost efforts in other states, such as Ģ����Ƶ, Texas, Delaware, and Missouri, to name a few, where lawmakers have considered the accounts in recent years. In 2011, since its enactment. Arizona children with special needs can apply for an account, along with children from failing schools, adopted children, and children living on Native American reservations, among others. Nevada is the first state to give every public school child this opportunity from day one.

Education savings accounts have also attracted national attention. Republicans included education savings accounts in their (as for Democrats, who the Wall Street Journal says has a built-in “” education savings accounts were noticeably missing from their party positions).

In March, introduced a bill to allow all children attending Bureau of Indian Education schools access to education savings accounts. Politico highlighted these students’ need for quality educational options in November 2015 with a feature headlined “” Former presidential candidate and introduced a bill in January that would make all Washington, D.C. children eligible for accounts.

As a result, federal and state lawmakers across the country are watching what happens in Carson City, Nevada. Arizona’s Supreme Court in 2011 after the state teachers union and other associations brought a lawsuit similar to the ACLU’s charges in Nevada (the Goldwater Institute defended the accounts alongside the Institute for Justice, the group defending Nevada’s accounts). A victory for students in Nevada would mark the second victory for the accounts over challenges that the accounts violate state constitutional provisions that block the use of public funds for private or religious schools.

Five states have passed the accounts so far, but the accounts are turning into a movement offering families flexible opportunities in education. The successes of these programs, and the lifelong knowledge and skills gained—won’t just stay in Vegas.

The post Education Savings Accounts and State and Federal Agendas appeared first on For Opportunity.

Virginia’s proposal is similar to laws enacted in Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Education savings accounts in these states allow to customize a child’s learning experience with online classes, private school tuition, curricular materials like textbooks, and, critically for children with special needs, educational therapy like speech and occupational therapy.

In Virginia, 13 percent of students——have special needs and could use an account to find educational services to help them succeed. As this blog has explained previously, Arizona families are hiring individual tutors to help children with autism, students who were struggling to learn basic skills prior to using an account. Others are combining public school extracurricular activities with home-based instruction, which gives children the chance to interact with their peers and learn in a setting that meets their needs. Such opportunities give hope to children and their parents.

Education savings accounts also provide lawmakers with a solution for large, statewide policy issues looming on the horizon.

Research from Matthew Ladner, Ph.D. at the Foundation for Excellence in Education finds that Virginia and Ģ����Ƶ have something in common: High age-dependency ratios. For Virginia, their score of +19 means the state has a “high percentage of people out of the workforce and a relatively small percentage of people trying to cover the costs of their education, retirement, and health care.”

The U.S. Census projects that Virginia’s public school enrollment will increase by 300,000 students over the next 15 years while the population of adults over 65 will almost double. The expansion in these two sectors will put a strain on taxpayer-funded services in education and health care.

Ģ����Ƶ finds itself in a similar position. Ģ����Ƶ’s +16 score is slightly below the national average of +17, but still points to a future where fewer people are pulling the cart of social programs and increasing numbers are sitting in the cart. The Census estimates Ģ����Ƶ’s student population will increase by a half-million students, while its elderly population will increase by nearly 1 million.

Education savings accounts and other private school choice options like tax credit scholarships (already available in Virginia and Ģ����Ƶ) will help ease the pressure on taxpayers who would be asked to pay for new district school buildings and public school staff. Parental choice in education comes at a significant discount compared to district school services. In Arizona, education savings accounts for children with special needs are worth 90 percent of what is spent on these children in traditional schools while, on average, mainstream students’ accounts amount to 50-60 percent of what taxpayers spend per child in district schools.

Virginia and Ģ����Ƶ badly need solutions like these. Education savings accounts improve the quality of life for participating families and can provide students with choices as the demands for public services increase.

Jonathan Butcher is education director at the Goldwater Institute and senior fellow at the Beacon Center of Tennessee.

The post Education Savings Accounts Could Help Virginia and Ģ����Ƶ “Face the Strain” appeared first on For Opportunity.

ESAs are similar to an Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) or a Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) in terms of the flexibility they provide but are . A portion of the state’s allocated dollars that are already designated for each child’s public education are instead loaded onto a debit card that parents use to . This money can be used for any educational resources including tutors, textbooks, private-school, homeschooling curriculum, and virtual learning.

Often these programs are confused with Coverdell Education Savings Accounts which are instead set up with personal money invested into tax-free accounts. These Funds can be used at any eligible educational institution whether that be . With a regular ESA, funds are coming from “”

Several states have already implemented ESA programs. For example, , attending failing public schools, in the foster care system, or children of active-duty military. Nevada offers a universal ESA program, the opportunity to obtain quality education in the environment that best fits his or her learning needs.

Parents know their child’s learning needs best, so they are best equipped to decide how these resources should be spent to ensure their child obtains a quality education. By having control over the money the state is already spending on their child, parents who were previously limited by income or geography, now have access to more educational options for their children. Parents can keep their child in their school if they’re happy with it, but ESAs give more options to parents who feel that their child’s current school environment isn’t meeting their needs.

You can learn even more about ESAs at .

The post A Lesson in ESAs appeared first on For Opportunity.

Today, students across the globe can learn in more ways than we can count, from books to to hosted by Harvard and MIT to computers installed on the sidewalk (even ). To better prepare every child for a successful future, parents, lawmakers, and educators need a new definition for what it means to learn. And one classroom might not be enough for a student.

Had Pugliese’s teachers recognized he was bored, clearly they would have tried to make their lessons more useful for the “real world.” No educator wants his students to be unprepared for life. Horace Mann inscribed the mission of generations of educators when he called education the “great equalizer of the conditions of men,” a phrase U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan would repeat some 150 years later.

Yet how can education fulfill this noble treatise if schools can’t keep students in the classroom, or the very least, interested in the classroom?

Today, public education’s challenge is not just to limit the number of students dropping out of school, though that is critical. The percentage of students dropping out has been nearly cut in half since 1990, .

The implications of this decrease are profound. For example, black men of working-age (20 to 34) without a high school diploma are more likely to be in prison than employed, according to Pew research. A diploma may have far-reaching effects for these men.

But just attending school or even finishing high school isn’t enough. Students need to be challenged and inspired by learning experiences that meet their needs so that they can have a chance at the American Dream.

Education savings accounts provide parents and their children with the flexibility to choose from multiple learning options at the same time. As this blog has explained, education savings accounts, now law in five states, are bank accounts complete with debit cards that allow families to buy educational products and services for their children.

In Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Nevada, eligible families have more educational options than just their child’s assigned public school. The state deposits funding in each account, and families can pay for personal tutors, textbooks and curricular materials like science kits, online classes, private school tuition, and college classes. Families can even save money from year to year.

In Arizona, uses Nathan’s account to pay for tutoring services and private school tuition. The Visser family educates Jordan at home, swiping his education savings account card with different vendors in order to combine therapy services and educational instruction. The McMurray family uses the accounts to participate in extracurricular activities offered by a public school. that more than one-third of accountholders use their education savings account for multiple learning options.

This is the future of learning. For some students, it may just be a new school. Or a tutor to help them keep up with their classmates. For others, it could mean enrolling in classes offered on the other side of the world or using an iPad—with a data plan—to learn math with an app.

Education savings accounts allow for one or all of these options. Every Ģ����Ƶ child should have access to the future of learning.

Jonathan Butcher is education director at the Goldwater Institute and senior fellow with the Beacon Center of Tennessee.

The post Education Savings Accounts and Learning in the 21st Century appeared first on For Opportunity.

Perla is like every mom—she wants the best for her children in and out of school. Fortunately for Perla and Albiery, they live in one of five states where lawmakers have allowed students to use education savings accounts to find unique learning experiences that may include online classes, personal tutors, private schools, public school classes, and college savings plans, among other uses, all with the same account.

With an education savings account, the state deposits public funds in a private account that parents use to purchase educational products and services for their child. In 2015, that would have allowed state families to use the accounts, but the legislation stalled.

Albiery’s new school has brought out his interests in new subjects, and Perla is excited to use his account to support him with whatever he needs to succeed. “He wants to be an architect, and I’m so happy for that,” Perla says.

In this three-part series, the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity will explain why Ģ����Ƶ needs to give parents this flexible educational option, how education savings accounts change the way we think about learning, and how the accounts work in states that have already enacted laws: , Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Nevada.

Ģ����Ƶ families, like those all over the country, need better learning options. Student achievement scores should trouble Ģ����Ƶ parents. According to researchers, . Among families where at least one parent finished college, students from 31 nations perform better than Ģ����Ƶ students.

In reading, . By eighth grade, nearly 70 percent read below the basic level.

Yet in a in January 2015, 30 percent of respondents rated Ģ����Ƶ public schools as “excellent” or “good,” while another 38 percent rated them as “fair.” Sixty-eight percent of Ģ����Ƶ schools cannot be doing a fair job or better if almost three-quarters of their students aren’t.

Every child should have access to a school that will challenge him and prepare him for the future. But the labor market is changing quickly. The skills individuals will need to know in order to have a successful career are impossible to predict over the long term.

A recent study by Young Invincibles, a group that researches trends among Millennials, found that the jobs most likely to set Millennials up for success are physician’s assistants, actuaries, statisticians, and biomedical engineers. These careers will require a solid educational background in K-12 and college and even graduate school.

Families can use education savings accounts to save money from year to year, pay for college classes before and during their student’s postsecondary years, and pay for graduate school. This way, students can learn skills before, during, and after college that will help them in their careers.

This feature of the accounts is why families like Perla and Albiery’s can talk about college. And life after college. “I think it has been very good for our family,” Perla says.

Ģ����Ƶ students deserve the same opportunities to find success in school and in life. Education savings accounts can help give this chance to every Ģ����Ƶ child.

Jonathan Butcher is education director at the Goldwater Institute and senior fellow at the Beacon Center of Tennessee.

The post Ģ����Ƶ and the Future of Learning appeared first on For Opportunity.