Columbus, OH – On Thursday, The Buckeye Institute released its newest policy brief, School Choice Now Act: Meeting Students’ Needs In Uncertain Times, which outlines how the School Choice Now Act—sponsored by senators Tim Scott (R-SC) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN)—can provide financial resources to parents to help them afford the best educational setting that fits the specific needs of their children.

“With only 51 percent of school districts across the country offering all or some in-person learning, many students—particularly minority students in urban districts—will have to attend classes online regardless of their family situation or learning needs,” said Greg R. Lawson, a research fellow at The Buckeye Institute and the author of School Choice Now Act: Meeting Students’ Needs In Uncertain Times. “The policies in the School Choice Now Act can provide needed funding and resources to families desperate to provide the best educational setting for their children in these uncertain times.”

In the brief, Lawson outlines how the policies in the School Choice Now Act—which would offer school choice options to millions of K-12 students nationwide—can help families and students. The policies would help families by:

• Providing a one-time emergency appropriation (10 percent of COVID-19 emergency education funding) to scholarship-granting organizations in each state;
• Allowing for a permanent dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for individuals and corporations to contribute to scholarship-granting organizations; and 
• Allowing states and private sector partners to design their own tax credit scholarships that, like education savings accounts, would give families additional resources to augment their child’s education.

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