The Trump administration may shift the focus of its school-choice agenda to a group of students that the federal government has a special responsibility for: children connected to the military.
Creating education savings accounts for the children of military personnel has support among some conservatives. But some advocates for military families have been cautious about embracing the idea.
Still, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said in a recent interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington that there’s clearly an appetite among military families for more choice.
“I know for a fact that for more than a third of active-duty military families that have school-age children, their decisions where they go, or where they don’t go, or whether they continue to serve, hinge very heavily on the opportunities they have for their children’s education,” DeVos said. In a 2017 survey by the Military Times, 35 percent of service members with children said dissatisfaction with their children’s education was a “significant” factor in deciding whether or not to continue with their service. “So I think we have an opportunity in that regard to empower them with some more of those choices.”
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