President Trump has supported the idea of school vouchers since his campaign. Broadly, voucher programs allow school districts to offer children either a full public school education or a voucher to attend a private school, regardless of whether that school is religiously affiliated. Although only generally endorsing ‘School choice’ during his campaign, Trump’s administration published different plans to implement school vouchers directly both before and after taking office.
The administration’s initial plan suggested redirecting $20 billion dollars from federal programs to a grant that could fund private, religious, and home schools. This also assumed states individually would divert their own education department funding to voucher programs. Since taking office, there have been a variety of other attempts to fund this program, although as of yet none have been implemented.
Beyond allowing children to attend religious schools using federal funds through the voucher program, Trump’s policies would expand the opportunities for charter schools nationally. In order to accomplish this goal, in February 2018 Trump’s administration proposed a $1.1 Billion investment in what is described as “school choice.” This would also give extra grant money to school districts which specifically created school voucher programs.
