Louisiana Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy talks with reporters in the Dirksen Senate office building on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The fierce debate surrounding school choice initiatives took center stage Wednesday during a hearing in a U.S. Senate panel.
President Donald Trump’s administration and congressional Republicans have made school choice a central point of their education agenda, including a sweeping national school voucher program baked into the GOP’s mega tax and spending cut bill Trump signed into law in July.
The hearing came in the middle of National School Choice Week, which the U.S. Department of Education dubbed
The umbrella term “school choice” centers on alternative programs to one’s assigned public school. Opponents argue these efforts drain critical funds and resources from school districts, though advocates say the initiatives are necessary for parents dissatisfied with their local public schools.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which held the hearing, described school choice as “the avenue for expressing the innovation that we need to meet a student’s need.”
“Traditional schools work for many students — what we’re asking, though, is to give the parent the choice if it does not,” the Louisiana Republican added.
Many models for school choice
Proponents in Ohio and Florida touted the work of their respective organizations and the broader school choice efforts in their states.
Cris Gulacy-Worrel serves as vice president of Oakmont Education, an operator of dropout recovery charter schools serving more than 5,500 students in Ohio, Iowa and Michigan.
Gulacy-Worrel said last year, Oakmont Education “graduated 1,309 students, and we’ve placed over 4,500 young people directly into the workforce over the last three years alone.”
“For far too long, we’ve been told school choice is about (Education Savings Accounts) or public charter schools — it’s not,” she said. “What we’re really talking about is educational plurality, a system with room for many models and many pathways to success.”
John Kirtley is chairman of Step Up For Students, a nonprofit scholarship funding organization that distributes scholarships for children in Florida.
Kirtley said his state “has been moving towards a new definition of public education: Raise taxpayer dollars to educate children, but then empower families to direct those dollars to different providers and even different delivery methods that best suit their individual children’s learning needs.”
More than half of all K-12 students in the Sunshine State participate in a school choice program rather than attending their local public school.
Bernie Sanders sees two-tier system created
Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the panel’s ranking member, said that while there are a “number of things we can and should be doing to strengthen and improve education” in the country, “we should not be creating a two-tier education system in America — private schools for the wealthy and well-connected and severely under-funded and under-resourced public schools for low-income, disabled and working-class kids.”
The Vermont independent said that “unfortunately, that is precisely what the Trump administration and my Republican colleagues in Congress are doing,” pointing to the national school voucher program that’s now law.
Sanders’ staff released a committee report Wednesday analyzing the state laws of 21 states with school voucher programs that scholarship granting organizations administer, in an effort to understand the forthcoming federal school voucher program’s potential effects.
Among the findings, the report concluded that “nearly half of analyzed private schools (48%) explicitly state that they choose not to provide some or all students with disabilities with the services, protections, and rights provided to those students in public schools under federal law.”
Arizona voucher program
Marisol Garcia, president of the Arizona Education Association, testified about the negative repercussions of private school vouchers in the Grand Canyon state.
In 2022, Arizona became the first state in the country to enact a universal school voucher program.
Garcia described her state’s voucher program as a “bloated mess costing three times more than it was projected” and said vouchers “often only offer the illusion of choice.”
“Every child deserves a great public school in Arizona,” she added. “Our experiences show that vouchers are not the way to achieve that goal.”
National school voucher program
The permanent national school voucher program, starting in 2027, allocates up to $1,700 in federal tax credits for individuals who donate to organizations that provide private and religious school scholarships.
The program reflects a sweeping bill that Cassidy and GOP Reps. Adrian Smith of Nebraska and Burgess Owens of Utah had reintroduced in their respective chambers in 2025.
Cassidy defended the program during the hearing, saying: “We’re not trying to supplant funding for public education — we’re trying to supplement funding for education.”
As of Tuesday, nearly half of all states have opted in to the initiative, per the Education Department.
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