President Trump on Monday highlighted his efforts to expand school choice for American families at a “Back to School” event at the White House as millions of children across the country return to school.
Standing alongside Education Secretary Linda McMahon and parents who say they have benefited from the administration’s push to enable children to break free of the public education system, Mr. Trump highlighted what he described as education wins.
“Before I got here, [the education system] was weaponized against the goals that we all stand for,” Mr. Trump said from the White House Rose Garden. “Under the last administration, extreme ideologies such as critical race theory and transgender insanity were forced upon our children as young as 4 or 5.”
School choice has been the centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s education agenda. It is the practice of using public education dollars to follow students to schools or learning environments that families choose.
Mr. Trump says the money is critical because families should leave what he said are failing public schools and lagging student test scores. He also cited his administration’s promotion of tax-advantaged “529” education savings plans to pay for homeschooling costs.
“We’re putting the parents back in charge. They’re the ones that love our children,” Mr. Trump said.
“Students were taught that our heroes are villains, the FBI was used to target patriotic parents at school board meetings, and meanwhile, far too many government-run schools failed at the basics,” the president said. “You just have to look at the charts. They were failing at a thing called education with only 30% proficiency in reading and math.”
In his first month back in office, Mr. Trump signed an executive order aimed at dismantling the Education Department and returning control of education to the states. He also tasked Ms. McMahon with prioritizing “education freedom” when doling out federal grant money.
In addition, Mr. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill included the first federal tax-credit scholarship program in the U.S. It allows individual taxpayers to claim a dollar-for-dollar credit of up to $1,700 for donations made to groups that fund private school tuition and deduct other K-12 expenses for eligible students.
Education activists have long opposed school choice, arguing that it is simply a way to funnel tax money to private schools.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called Mr. Trump’s education agenda a “likely illegal scheme to diminish choice and deny resources to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.”
She said vouchers “hijack federal money” and send it to wealthy families whose children are already in private school.
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