Educators for Excellence Statement on Release of FSTC Regulations

Evan Stone, Co-Founder and CEO of Educators for Excellence, issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service’s release of regulations governing the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program:

“Teachers’ view of the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit (FSTC) hasn’t changed since the day it passed—public dollars belong in public schools, not private ones. Nearly four in five teachers (79%) oppose using public funds to pay for private schools through the FSTC, and a majority (58%) strongly oppose it.

The regulations released this week are a missed opportunity to drive the funds in a direction teachers would support—toward the public schools attended by 90% of American students. They do little to make sure public school students specifically benefit, and they don’t require participating private schools to meet state accountability or nondiscrimination standards. Worse, they bar states from setting those standards themselves.

We urge the Department of the Treasury to fix this as quickly as possible, before the rules are final, and to give states the authority to hold participating schools accountable for student learning and fair treatment of every student. In the meantime, we urge state leaders who have opted in, or plan to, to use every tool they have to make sure these dollars reach public school students. That means building the infrastructure for families to use the funds for services their children might not otherwise have access to while staying in their local public school, like tutoring, after-school and enrichment programming, transportation, and supplemental supports for students with disabilities.

Public dollars belong in the public schools that serve the vast majority of U.S. children. As states opt into this program, they must work to ensure these scholarships reach public school students in their local public schools.”

Evan Stone is available for further comment. For inquiries, reach out to [email protected].