What a federal school choice bill would mean for Minnesota
A proposed federal scholarship tax credit bill would expand parental choice to all 50 states, providing families a funding option that could be used for a wide variety of educational needs.
Through privately funded scholarships, the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) offers a non-refundable 100 percent tax credit to individuals and corporations that donate to nonprofit scholarship granting organizations. These nonprofit organizations then award the scholarships to eligible students nationwide and across various educational settings, including homeschooling.
To be eligible for the scholarship, recipients must be eligible to enroll in a public elementary or secondary school and be a member of a household whose family income is not greater than 300 percent of the area median gross income.
Education expenses the scholarship can be used toward include tuition, curriculum and curricular materials, books or other instructional materials, online educational materials, tuition for tutoring or educational classes outside of the home, fees for a nationally standardized norm-referenced achievement test, an advanced placement examination, or other exams related to college or university admission, fees for dual enrollment, and educational therapies (occupational, behavioral, physical, speech-language) for students with disabilities provided by a licensed or accredited practitioner or provider.
The ECCA would be particularly helpful in states like Minnesota, where robust school choice programs do not currently exist. In states with existing school choice laws, the ECCA would be an additional option and would not interfere with state level initiatives.
Courts across the nation, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have “concluded that funds donated to private charities are private funds, regardless of whether the donation makes the taxpayer eligible for a tax deduction or a tax credit,” explains the Institute for Justice.
As a tax credit, the education scholarship bill requires no new federal money. It also has no role for the U.S. Department of Education, imposes no federal mandates, and has safeguard language that protects religious liberty and private school autonomy.
Tax credit scholarships are popular — more than two-thirds of Americans and nearly 80 percent of school parents support them, according to EdChoice’s 2024 Schooling in America survey. School parents are nearly four times as likely to support them than to oppose them.
Check out the short video below from EdChoice to see how tax credit scholarships work.