Federal School Choice Could Become a Reality with Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”

After weeks of negotiation and deliberation, President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed the United States House of Representatives this week. Palmetto Promise is glad to see so many important components of this legislation, like continued tax cuts, deregulation, and more.

But the part we are most excited about is the inclusion of the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA). School choice advocates have urged members of Congress to take on federal school choice legislation this year, with the momentum of a unified Republican government, and we could not be more pleased to see the U.S. House deliver just that.

Palmetto Promise Institute is proud to be a member of the Invest in Education Coalition, the largest coalition ever assembled in support of a federal scholarship tax credit for school choice.

Read the letter we sent to Congressional leaders back in February:

The ECCA section included in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” establishes, with a $5 billion investment, $5,000 tax credit scholarships for low and middle-income families that can be used for tuition, textbooks and curriculum, online education materials, tutoring, testing fees, dual enrollment classes, and disability therapies. Students in all sorts of educational settings would be eligible—homeschool, private school, charter school and public school! And even better, these scholarships can stack on top of state-level school choice program, like South Carolina’s own Education Scholarship Trust Fund. Such a program presents a life-changing opportunity for families across the nation to customize their child’s education. We know that one size does not fit all when it comes to schooling, and the U.S. House of Representatives is finally putting congressional support behind this message.

Now that the U.S. House of Representatives has resoundingly embraced the promise of school choice, it is time for the U.S. Senate to follow.

Last night on Fox News, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott (a co-sponsor on the Senate-filed ECCA and namesake of our Artis Ware Center for Education Opportunity) told Kellyanne Conway, “The closest thing to magic in America is a good education, and embedded in this Big Beautiful Bill? School choice. $5 billion allowing more kids to experience the freedom called good education. I’m hoping that we’re going to plus it up even more and get it to $10 billion [in the Senate].”

We hope that Senator Scott’s Senate colleagues agree with his bold commitment to educational opportunity for all Americans. As both Senator Scott and SC Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver are known to say, “Education is the front door of the American dream.”