Going back to school with federal education savings accounts

As the coronavirus lockdowns unwind, America has started heading back to work. And before we know it, our students may be heading back to school. After a lost semester that disrupted classes and cancelled athletic seasons, proms and graduation ceremonies, the where, when and how students go back to school remain difficult open questions for parents, students and teachers.   

Families, of course, already are trying to answer those questions for the coming school year and beyond — and perhaps Washington can offer some much-needed help. 

The uncertainty facing students and schools will require them to be uniquely flexible as classes resume. Federally funded education savings accounts, or ESAs, can provide some additional flexibility for families looking to navigate these turbulent waters with their K-12 children.  

ESAs are special accounts funded with public education dollars that families can spend on a wide range of educational products and services, including computers, education software, online courses, tutoring and curriculum enhancements. They give parents control of the government-paid share of their child’s education, and thus enhance flexibility for families and teachers to design more personalized learning programs and environments tailored to meeting a student’s individual educational needs. And because unused ESA funds can be rolled over from year to year, they give families incentives to search for the best educational services at the most competitive price.

The Buckeye Institute has recommended such cost-effective, tailored flexibility to augment the traditional K-12 classroom for some time, but families need the benefits of well-designed ESA programs now more than ever. 

As students and teachers look to recover last semester’s lost classroom hours, they have a lot of ground to make up. The interrupted school year negatively affected African American and Hispanic students the most — students already suffering from stubbornly persistent academic achievement gaps, according to the Nation’s Report Card. And unfortunately, as schools look to partial reopenings, shifting to remote learning platforms and delaying return to “normal” classrooms, those achievement gaps may widen.

Then there are students in poorer urban and rural areas without the technological or financial resources needed to participate fully in their school districts’ distance-learning opportunities. According to some teachers, particularly those serving in low-income areas, fewer than half of their students were logging in to do their schoolwork during the COVID-19 closures.

The financial flexibility offered by federal- and state-funded ESAs can help mitigate these problems and provide families and teachers some additional stability for students. Several states — including Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Mississippi and Tennessee — have successfully pioneered various types of ESA programs tailored to meet their students’ needs. It is time for federal education policy and funding to follow their lead.  

COVID-19 has strained state resources across the board, and state and local education spending likely will remain under pressure for the foreseeable future. A federal ESA offers timely benefits that can build on a state’s successful school choice programs such as vouchers and tax credit scholarships. Washington can even link a federal ESA with tax-advantaged savings plans such as 529s or Coverdell ESAs to throw another lifeline to families treading these choppy pandemic waters.

Fiscal prudence demands that federal ESAs be funded with existing federal education program dollars, rather than adding to the national deficit or raising taxes on beleaguered households and business. Washington should let states take the lead in implementing the new program, but should tie strings sufficient to ensure that the money goes directly to families and is not diverted or consumed by state bureaucracies. 

America’s elementary and secondary students have been through a lot this year. And next year still lacks a clear path back to the schoolyard. A well-crafted federal ESA can help make that path a bit easier for students, parents, teachers and states. But Washington needs to act now, before the school bell rings.

Greg R. Lawson is a research fellow at The Buckeye Institute with expertise that includes local government, education and education funding. He previously was a Legislative Service Commission fellow with the Ohio General Assembly.