Jason Bedrick

LEGISLATION Federal The U.S. Senate saw a reintroduction of previous efforts to create a federal tax credit to donors of state-based scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs) that award scholarships as a part of state tax-credit scholarship programs. The bill, S 447, would create an individual federal credit worth up to $4,500 and a corporate credit worth up […]

LEGISLATION Federal  Lawmakers introduced HR 499, a bill seeking to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to allow military dependent children to establish federally funded education savings accounts. The bill was referred to the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor. The U.S. Senate saw early private school choice action as well. S. […]

LEGISLATION New Jersey Lawmakers introduced a couple of coronavirus-related relief measures for families conducting remote learning in the form of state income tax benefits. SB 3104 provides a 25 percent tax credit for qualified education and child care expenses, the former of which includes materials necessary to support remote instruction. AB 4946 is the New […]

LEGISLATION Virginia Virginia lawmakers have filed three bills to expand educational choice during the pandemic or similar health crises: • SB 5020 would require any district school operating on a “reduced schedule” to deposit any “unused funds” (i.e., savings from being closed down) into specially established education savings accounts for each student. The ESAs could […]

Federal Senators introduced the School Choice Now Act, a bill that would provide a one-time emergency appropriation for state scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs) to maintain scholarship amounts likely to be affected by a decrease in donations from the pandemic. The bill provides a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for donations to SGOs, capped at $5 billion per […]

LEGISLATION AND LITIGATION   National In March, Congress passed The CARES Act, a multi-billion dollar COVID-19 relief stimulus bill that provided emergency relief block grants to states. These funds continued to be processed by states and school districts. In May, U.S. Department of Education guidance enabled governors to appropriate the law’s Education Stabilization Funds to best fit the […]

LEGISLATION   Missouri Missouri legislators filed two education savings account bills, HB 2068 and SB 581, for students who are members of a household whose total annual income does not exceed two times the Missouri income standard used to qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. These two companion bills both aim to establish the “Show […]

As we face a pandemic, school choice in the states saw a dip in activity last month. Some bills continued to progress, however. Let our state and legal teams help you stay up to date on the latest in our monthly brief.   Arizona The Arizona legislature passed and Gov. Doug Ducey signed SB 1224, […]

Last month was a busy one for school choice in the states. Let our state and legal teams help you stay up to date on the latest in our monthly brief.   FEDERAL UPDATE   On Feb. 20, Leslie Hiner testified before lawyers at the Internal Revenue Service in opposition to a regulation proposed by […]