Congress recently passed the “Big Beautiful Bill” at the beginning of July. While that bill contains a lot of material worthy of debate, one provision in the bill is a good sign for school choice. The School Choice Movement is a national movement which seeks to pass legislation allowing parents to choose the school of their choice, whether public or private using vouchers or other deductions. The provision in question includes a scholarship program which gives tax credits to donors who contribute to nonprofit scholarship-granting organizations. In other words, this has the possibility to make Catholic schools more affordable for families.
There are two important caveats. First, the scholarship program is opt-in. That is, states can decide whether or not they will participate in this program. Second, the most recent version of the bill removed religious liberty clauses that protected the independence of the schools receiving such scholarships. Hence, there is the possibility that a state provides these scholarships, but conditions their distribution to private schools. Still, this is an important step for school choice in Rhode Island.
This provision helps instantiate the Church’s teaching that parents are the primary educators of their children. It could enable tax paying families, particularly those with lower income, to send their children to schools of their choice. As a result, parents and children are not forced to attend underperforming schools based simply on their ZIP Code or their amount of wealth. This is especially important for Catholics given the increasingly radical progressive ideologies in public schools that contradict Church teaching.
