Vouchers 2.0: Education Savings Accounts?
Keep this phrase in mind: Education savings accounts.
It may not be occurring at your kitchen table, but at some tables, people are talking about the future of school choice programs in Wisconsin. And these are, in many cases, important people — thought leaders and political leaders among Republicans and conservatives — who are likely to have strong roles to play when decisions are made as part of the hugely important state budget process next spring.
Among those people, education savings accounts — ESAs, in the jargon of this — are an idea of considerable interest. Vouchers 2.0, some say. The next step in giving parents power over the education of their children, rather than leaving it with school systems (even private ones), some say.
You may think we have a lot of school choice these days, and there is certainly a case for saying that. In fact, let’s summarize things a little bit since I assume only people who are paid to do this understand the landscape.
