Making good on an order from President Donald Trump’s first days in office to look into how it could expand school choice, the U.S. Department of Education on Monday reminded states of existing flexibility they have to spend some of their federal funds to allow parents more of a say in customizing their child’s education.
The department said the move was a first step to push states to embrace existing freedom in law to advance a key education policy priority for the new administration. But the guidance on using a portion of federal funds earmarked for low-income students for that purpose was necessarily limited.
The guidance, which came in the form of a letter sent to state education chiefs, pointed to two portions of the law governing Title I—the federal formula grant that provides funding for services for students from low-income communities—that allow states “discretion to provide greater flexibility to support parents’ choices for their child’s education.”
States and schools could use those funds to let students take courses not offered at their home school or gain college credit while taking high school courses, the letter said. Notably, the document did not lay out a path for the expansive use of public funds on private school tuition, which has been a staple of school choice policies that have gained particular momentum in Republican-led states over the past few years and could gain momentum soon in Congress with the federal government under unified Republican control.
“States can use this flexibility so that parents can be given a range of options—advanced courses, dual enrollment, academic tutoring, career and technical education, personalized learning, and out-of-school activities—to select for their child,” read the letter from Hayley Sanon, the principal deputy assistant secretary and acting assistant secretary of the office of elementary and secondary education.
Sanon said the letter was the first of several documents the department would release as part of its efforts to expand choice.
For school choice advocates, it represented a “really positive step” to remind states of the freedom they already have, said Matt Frendewey, vice president of strategy at the yes. every kid. foundation, a nonprofit that backs expanding all types of school choice.
“Right out of the gate, I think it’s positive. It’s a really early demonstration of this administration’s commitment to education freedom and empowering states,” Frendewey said.
Others didn’t view the letter as being all that significant.
“The letter doesn’t have any new information, doesn’t provide new content,” said Ivy Smith-Morgan, the associate director of P-12 analytics at EdTrust, a nonprofit that advocates for improving racial and economic equity in education. “It feels like it’s just trying to slap a school choice label on things that states and districts have already been able to do.”
The letter comes two months after the president directed the Education Department to develop guidance for states on using funds, like Title I, to support school choice. It also directed the department to prioritize school choice when awarding competitive grants. Trump’s order was relatively narrow, however, because the federal government’s role in public education is traditionally limited and because school choice legislation would need to pass Congress to provide more of a role for the federal government in advancing that policy.
The letter also comes as more states are seeking to take the reins of federal funding through waivers asking the federal government to send their subsidies as block grants, rather through specific funding streams with requirements attached to each. Oklahoma’s state chief was specifically eyeing school choice as part of that state’s recent ask.
This first letter from the department doesn’t introduce new policies; rather, it serves as a reminder of what states are already permitted to do.
Under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the law that guides federal involvement in education, states can elect to use 3 percent of Title I funds for “direct student services,” which include enrollment in academic courses not offered at a student’s school, such as advanced coursework or career-technical education; transportation to another school a student attends through choice; tutoring; and costs for dual enrollment in higher education courses.
As of now, only Ohio makes use of that flexibility, according to the department.
Another provision allows schools to use their own funds flexibly in a similar way, too. Schools could identify dual enrollment, tutoring, or CTE programs for students and parents to consider as part of their plan for using Title I to improve programming.
“If the president is saying to the department, ‘Do more for choice,’ I think that the department telling states, ‘OK, remember, here’s all the stuff you can do for choice,’ is responsive to the order,” said Nora Gordon, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University. “This is what they legally can do to comply with the order.”
As part of these provisions, state leaders need to consult leaders in geographically diverse districts when deciding whether to reserve these funds for the direct student services.
If states choose to do that, it would cut into the allocations each district receives, Smith-Morgan, of EdTrust, said.
“In a district that receives more funding, that kind of cut means more on a per-student basis than it does in other districts,” she said. “Taking advantage of this provision could result in sort of what we would consider to be inequitable Title I cuts across districts.”
