Catholic leaders push for $10 billion federal school choice program

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CNA Staff, Feb 14, 2025 / 14:45 pm (CNA).

Catholic leaders have voiced support for a bill that would establish a federal tax credit to expand school choice in K–12 education.

If passed, the Educational Choices for Children Act (ECCA), introduced at the end of January during National School Choice Week and National Catholic Schools Week, would provide $10 billion in tax incentives for those who contribute to nonprofits that provide education scholarships for K–12.

The program is designed to encourage individuals and businesses to donate by offering tax credits for donations to Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOS), non-private 501c3s that provide scholarships for eligible students to attend qualifying K–12s. The program would also help assist students in public, private, and home school with tuition, fees, books, and educational materials. A companion version of the bill has been introduced in the House. 

School choice programs help low- and middle-income families send their children to private schools of their choice, including the nearly 6,000 Catholic schools across the nation. Following a record expansion of state school choice programs in 2023, the National Catholic Educational Association found that more than 1 in 10 Catholic school students used school choice programs to help them attend Catholic school in the 2023-2024 school year. While the number of states offering school choice programs has rapidly risen in recent years, these programs are only in select states. 

Numerous bishops and Catholic conferences throughout the U.S. have pushed for the ECCA, highlighting that it supports parental rights, education access, and religious freedom across the United States. 

Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, on Feb. 6 encouraged lawmakers to implement legislation that “provides for an ever-greater spectrum of educational choice for families.”

“As Catholics, we know the crucial role that Catholic schools serve in support of parents, the first and primary educators of their children, by providing enriching and morally robust choices — especially for all those who experience economic or other challenges that would otherwise put a high-quality private education out of reach,” Burbidge wrote. 

“Greater educational choice for families is good for everyone, as the experience of so many states shows, and what is good for individual families and their children is also good for our whole nation,” Burbidge continued.

The U.S. bishops voiced support for the act in a Jan. 30 letter to U.S. Sen. Dr. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, and Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Nebraska, who introduced the legislation following Trump’s executive order on expanding school choice programs. 

The head of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Catholic Education, Bishop David O’Connell, CM, of Trenton, New Jersey, in a Jan. 30 letter welcomed the proposed legislation, citing its affirmation of parental rights in education and its protections of religious freedom.

He said the legislation is necessary to combat “anti-Catholic” Blaine Amendments that prohibit public funding of religious schools and leave Catholic families “cut off from school choice at the state level.”

“The Educational Choice for Children Act is vital for families across the country who have little to no access to school choice in part due to a history of anti-Catholic bigotry,” O’Connell said. 

“Thirty-seven state constitutions still have ‘Blaine Amendments’ that prohibit public funding of religious schools, so named after the nakedly anti-Catholic attempt by Sen. [James] Blaine to amend the U.S. Constitution in 1875 to deny support to ‘sectarian’ schools,” he said.

“Opponents of parental choice continue to use Blaine Amendments to limit access to children’s educational options,” O’Connell said. “Amid ongoing litigation to resolve these issues in several states, there are still millions of children across the country who have no access to school choice.”

Several Catholic Conferences including California, Illinois, Kansas, Connecticut, and Washington state encouraged Catholics to urge legislators to support the ECCA. 

New York chancellor who met with Trump ‘hopeful’ it will pass

After attending a White House roundtable on the ECCA that included Republican governors, religious leaders, and education reform advocates to discuss the ECCA, the chancellor of the Archdiocese of New York, John Cahill, said he was “hopeful” the bill would pass.

Cahill, who met with President Donald Trump, said during a Feb. 4 “Conversations with Cardinal Dolan” interview that the president was “very interested” in making sure the act is included in the omnibus budget bill within the next 100 days.

Cahill said the House is likely to have the votes, while the Senate “we probably still need to do some work on.”

“We are in the best position to get some help from Washington on this,” Cahill added. “The president was very keen on the crisis that we have in the education system, a monopoly that, for the most part, failed during COVID.”

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York said in the same interview that the ECCA “really is a start” for increasing school choice for parents amid school closures in the Archdiocese of New York.

Dolan applauded the school choice legislation in an opinion piece for the New York Post, noting that “expanding education freedom with school choice must be one of the solutions to improve education for all children, regardless of where they attend school.”

The bill protects private or religious schools from being excluded from the scholarship program and also prohibits government officials from mandating or controlling those schools.

Cahill noted that the bill had support from legislators and governors of various faiths and that the focus was on increasing education options.

“This was all about choice of education for parents to do what’s best for the kids and had support geographically and demographically across our country,” Cahill said.