School Choice Isn't About School Quality. Here's What the Data Shows.

President Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon held a Rose Garden event Monday to promote the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which expands federal school choice through tax incentives. The pitch is familiar: give families options, let money follow students, let competition improve schools.

The problem is what the data actually shows about how school choice works in practice.

What Happened and Why It Matters

School choice, primarily through education savings accounts and voucher programs, has been framed as a pro-freedom policy that empowers parents. In principle, it sounds right: if a family isn't happy with their assigned school, why shouldn't they move to one they prefer?

But the real-world effect is different. When public funding follows students out of public schools into private alternatives, the schools left behind lose resources while their costs stay fixed. Teachers get laid off. Advanced programs get cut. The students who can't afford private school tuition or don't have parents with time to navigate complex enrollment processes get trapped in a hollowed-out system.

This matters because education is one of the few public goods that can actually break the cycle of poverty. A kid whose parents didn't go to college needs that good public school more than a kid whose parents can afford private tuition anyway.

The Policy Framework

The Common Good Party supports every child's access to a great public school. That means well-funded schools in every neighborhood, not a tiered system where access depends on zip code or family income. It means teachers paid enough to stay in the profession. It means resources for the kids who need them most, not diverted to private alternatives.

School choice policies, especially tax-based vouchers and education savings accounts, do the opposite. They're not expansion; they're subtraction. Money that would have strengthened the public system gets redirected to private schools that don't have to serve every student, don't have to report results, and don't have to follow the same civil rights protections as public schools.

Read the full reporting at The Hill.