President Trump issued an executive order (EO) redirecting discretionary grant program spending from the Department of Education away from public schools and towards private and faith-based schools, by ordering the Department to identify ways to funnel federal funds away from public K-12 education, including to give preferential treatment to voucher programs in the agency’s discretionary grant authority. It also orders the Department of Health and Human Services to issue guidance on how states receiving block grants for families and children can use those funds to support private and faith-based institutions. Finally, it directs the Defense Secretary and the Interior Department Secretary to come up with plans to use federal money to send children who are educated under the jurisdiction of those agencies – children of military families attending schools on military bases, and children attending Bureau of Indian Education-funded schools on reservations – to private and other non-public schools. This reduces the ability to fully fund public schools and provide students with a quality education.
Following the EO’s directives would require executive branch agencies to illegally redirect dollars from programs where both funding levels and disbursement rules are assigned by Congress. Legality aside, this EO effectively redirects taxpayer money away from students attending public schools towards relatively well-off families who send their kids to private schools. Around 90 percent of students attend public schools — and this is particularly true in the in low-income communities where private schools may be financially out of reach, and rural communities where private schools may not exist. These school districts rely on federal funds to provide high quality education.