New Federal School Voucher Program Poses a Quandary for States

(North Dakota Monitor)

(North Dakota Monitor) -When President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, he gave state leaders — not federal regulators — the power to decide whether and how to participate in the first-ever national tax credit scholarship program.

That decision now looms largest in blue states, where Democratic governors and lawmakers must weigh whether to reject the law outright on ideological grounds — or try to reshape it into something that reflects their own values.

“This isn’t the federal voucher program we were worried about five years ago,” said Jon Valant, a senior fellow in governance studies at the left-leaning Brookings Institution who testified before Congress on earlier versions of the bill. “It still has serious problems — but states now have tools to mold it into something they might actually support.”

The final law gives states wide discretion, he said. They can opt out entirely. They can opt in passively, leaving the program to operate as written. Or, as Valant suggests, they can try to redraw its footprint — focusing less on private school tuition and more on public school supports like tutoring, transportation and enrichment services in underserved districts.