What is the Educational Freedom Act? What stage is the bill at?
The California School Choice Foundation’s president and Californians for School Choice’s chairman, Michael Alexander, explains what the Educational Freedom Act proposes and how, if qualified for the Nov. 2024 ballot, could transform local children’s schooling options. The last of an Opp Now exclusive series. To receive daily updates of new Opp Now stories, click here.
Opportunity Now: How are the California School Choice Foundation and Californians for School Choice connected with the Educational Freedom Act, their preferred method of preserving school choice in California?
Michael Alexander: Both the California School Choice Foundation and Californians for School Choice were involved in drafting the statewide initiative entitled the Educational Freedom Act.
ON: What exactly does the Educational Freedom Act propose?
MA: The four key features of the Educational Freedom Act are as follows:
1. It would create an Education Savings Account (ESA) for any Californian child on the request of their parent or guardian. (“School choice,” while a common phrase, carries different meanings based on the state or county or region in which it is employed. Our initiative’s version refers to ESAs.)
2. Each ESA would be funded annually with about $15,000.
3. Parents, not local school boards or districts, could direct their children’s ESAs to participating accredited private or religious schools.
4. Anything left over in a child’s ESA could be utilized for college, vocational training, or other forms of qualified educational training.
ON: Talk to us about the progress of the Educational Freedom Act.
MA: This initiative was presented to California’s attorney general last year. Once we had the right to circulate the petition, we had to gather one million valid signatures and submit it to the Secretary of State to qualify it for the ballot. We had 180 days to do that starting last October. Unfortunately, it only got 200,000 signatures, many shy of the one million required—so it expired in April and failed to qualify.
We intend to re-submit this coming October (2022) and begin gathering signatures again starting January 2023 to qualify it for the November 2024 ballot.
ON: If they are interested in the Educational Freedom Act, what can local Californians do to learn about and advance this bill?
MA: They can engage with the following action items if interested:
1. Spread the word to friends and family about the importance of school choice.
2. Get on the California School Choice Foundation’s mailing list to be kept up-to-date. You don’t have to support the Educational Freedom Act initiative to sign up; it’ll just allow you to receive email communications on latest developments.
3. Consider volunteering to help gather signatures this coming January when we circulate the petition again.
4. If you believe in this initiative, consider donating to our organization. It will likely require over $5 million to qualify the Educational Freedom Act into the November 2024 ballot. Last time, we collected less than $1 million.
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This is part of an exclusive Opp Now series. Opp Now spoke with the CA School Choice Foundation president about the following education-centered topics:
The recent Maine Supreme Court decision
Why counterarguments of equity fall short in the school choice debate
The Silicon Valley’s competitive need for school choice
How widely wanted school choice policies are by CA’n voters
How school choice impacts local public schools
How the Educational Freedom Act could cultivate choice for local families in their children’s education
Image by Marco Verch on Flickr