OPINION:
The United States faces a growing public education crisis, defined by declining outcomes and institutional resistance to reform. In New York, this failure is especially acute. Although New York spends more per student than any other state, its public schools continue to underperform, deny essential accommodations and restrict families’ ability to seek alternatives.
President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act presents a powerful corrective. Embedded in this legislation is a federal version of the Educational Choice for Children Act, which would provide up to $5 billion annually in tax credits to donors who fund private scholarships for K-12 students. For many students, including me, Mr. Trump’s bill could be a path to justice.
The proposed school choice model operates through tax-incentivized donations to nonprofit scholarship organizations. These organizations, in turn, would distribute funds to eligible families: those earning up to 300% of the area median income.
Nowhere is such a model more necessary than in New York. Student outcomes remain dismal despite a per-pupil spending rate of about $36,000 and an average teacher salary of more than $92,000. In 2023, only 23% of the state’s eighth-graders scored proficient in math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The state’s average SAT score falls well below the national average, and chronic absenteeism affects 35% of students in New York City. The return on investment, measured in educational attainment, has collapsed.
Yet rather than respond with accountability or innovation, New York lawmakers have entrenched the status quo. The state Legislature continues to resist lifting the cap on charter schools, even as high-performing charters such as Success Academy report proficiency rates significantly higher than those in traditional public schools.
The result is a landscape in which students with unique learning needs, particularly those from middle- and working-class families, have no legal or financial means to pursue alternatives.
I speak from experience. In April 2024, a psychiatrist diagnosed attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder after my 16 years of difficulty in public schools. Throughout my academic life, I struggled to focus, read and retain basic information, often without understanding why. After receiving treatment, including medication and therapy, I was able to read a book for the first time. I began to write and eventually became the youngest nationally syndicated columnist in the United States.
However, even with a diagnosis and a recommendation for academic accommodations, my New York public high school refused to grant a federally protected 504 Plan. The process dragged on for more than nine months and ended in a formal denial. I was denied the tools I needed to succeed despite medical documentation and legal entitlement. Worse still, my family had no recourse. Transferring to a private program would have required us to bear the full cost out of pocket.
This is the precise injustice that school choice legislation aims to rectify. Under the model in Mr. Trump’s bill, families like mine could exit systems that fail them. Students with disabilities could access tutoring, learning aids or private instruction. Families could direct scholarship funds to the solutions that work, not those dictated by bureaucrats.
States such as Arizona and Florida have demonstrated the efficacy of similar programs. As of the past fall, more than 74,000 students were participating in Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program, and as of January, more than 500,000 students were participating in Florida’s school choice initiatives. School choice is a functioning alternative that provides measurable relief to families seeking a better educational future. The Educational Choice for Children Act would bring this opportunity to scale, ensuring that students in union-dominated states such as New York are not left behind.
Opponents of school choice often argue that such programs divert resources from public schools or create inequities, but the Educational Choice for Children Act does neither. It involves no redirection of government funds and does not reduce existing public school budgets. Instead, it introduces a voluntary mechanism by which private individuals and institutions can support families without access to alternatives.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s 2025 state budget exemplifies the dysfunction the school choice provision seeks to address. While academic performance indicators worsened, the state increased spending on ideological and noninstructional initiatives. Meanwhile, unelected officials such as Education Commissioner Betty Rosa received raises. Despite no evidence of improvement in the education system, Ms. Rosa brought her annual salary to $489,000. In such an environment, parental empowerment is reasonable and necessary.
For students across New York and across the country, Mr. Trump’s bill could be the difference between stagnation and opportunity. The Senate must preserve the school choice provision in the final legislation. Students deserve the right to leave systems that have failed them.
• Gregory Lyakhov is the youngest nationally syndicated columnist in the U.S., driving conversations on education reform as an advocate for school choice and student-centered learning.
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