There are many underreported provisions in the Republicans’ Big Beautiful Bill aside from the headline $4 trillion of tax cuts and $1.5 trillion in spending cuts. Chief among them is a national education tax credit scholarship program, nearly 30 years in the making, that will expand the growing education freedom movement nationwide.

The bill includes a version of the Education Choice for Children Act, which authorizes $5 billion in annual federal tax credits for donations to K-12 scholarship programs. Donors receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit, making participation financially seamless. Scholarship funding will be available to families nationwide who earn less than 300% of their region’s median income and can be used to pay for any education expenses, including private school tuition or homeschooling costs.

This measure is the culmination of a decades-long effort on Capitol Hill to make education funding follow children, not the system. Seventeen states have already enacted universal education savings accounts, and this federal effort will extend education freedom to deep-blue states that need it most. According to Patrick Wolf, graduate director of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, “the number of students being supported by private school choice programs across the country would double in one year.

This initiative will provide ordinary families with the means to pursue better schooling. Instead of the one-size-fits-all educational system that has remained largely unchanged for over a century, a diverse marketplace of schooling models tailored to families’ needs will flourish. School quality will improve through consumer choice and competition.

Florida is the model. More than 524,000 Sunshine State students used education freedom scholarships in 2024 for private or homeschooling alternatives. Florida’s education outcomes have improved from worst to first in the nation as the state has expanded school choice. Kids in California and other blue states deserve the same opportunity to escape underperforming schools they are trapped in due to their zip codes.

The public school status quo isn’t working for students or taxpayers. According to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, less than one-third of 8th-grade students nationwide are proficient in reading and math. The gap between minority students and their white peers has grown. Performance has deteriorated and inequality has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic, when public schools shut their doors for up to two and a half years, despite the clear harms to learning and the virus’s minimal risk to children.

While test scores have plummeted, public school funding has skyrocketed, increasing by more than 50% over the last decade. Enrollment has increased by just 5% since 2000, while the number of administrators has nearly doubled.

The upper-middle class and wealthy already enjoy educational freedom. They can afford private schools or reside in the best school districts. These federal scholarships, combined with state-level education savings accounts, extend this freedom to lower-income families, improving equity and outcomes.

Critics claim this program is a tax break for the wealthy. The Brookings Institution says it’s “tax policy that disproportionately benefits wealthy, urban households.” In reality, tax credit scholarships are a form of voluntary taxation—attractive to middle-class donors as well — that directly funds quality education for the next generation. This provision serves as a model for more efficient tax policy and responsive governance across a range of social services.

There’s much to like about the Big Beautiful Bill. However, Republican legislators and Americans nationwide shouldn’t overlook this major education policy victory when determining their level of support.

Jordan Bruneau is vice president of Job Creators Network, which is part of the Education Freedom Alliance.