Republican governors urge Treasury to include homeschoolers in federal school choice program

On the same day a report revealed that nearly 800,000 homeschoolers could be excluded from the new federal school choice program, a group of governors sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department urging it to include all students.

The America First Policy Institute’s Governors’ Council, a group of current and former Republican governors from 11 states, asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Tuesday to “clarify that a child’s eligibility for a scholarship does not depend on whether state law classifies the child’s learning environment as a school, and that a program operating lawfully under a state’s compulsory education laws is treated as a school for the purposes of the credit.”

Treasury guidance issued in June indicated homeschooling would be treated as a school only if state law did so. Those classifications vary from state to state, meaning homeschoolers in some states would be able to participate, but not those in others. The letter says students in microschools, hybrid programs, learning pods and similar settings would be similarly affected.

The proposed rules “could also result in families using identical educational arrangements receiving different treatment solely because they live in different states,” the letter states.

“As governors who have opted our states into the Education Freedom Tax Credit, we are eager to see the program succeed on the broadest possible terms, empowering families with learning opportunities that meet the unique needs of each child. Homeschooling and microschool families are among those most hopeful about what the credit can offer. A clear answer in the proposed regulations would give them, the states, and scholarship granting organizations confidence as we prepare for 2027,” when the program launches.

The signers include current governors Jeff Landry of Louisiana, Bill Lee of Tennessee, Patrick Morrissey of West Virginia, Tate Reeves of Mississippi, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, Jim Pillen of Nebraska, Mike Dunleavy of Alaska and Larry Rhoden of South Dakota, as well as former governors Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Phil Bryant of Mississippi, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Rick Perry of Texas.

Treasury indicated last month that rules for the new program, which passed in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, will be finalized by the end of September. The program launches Jan. 1, although states are gearing up now by indicating participation and assembling a list of qualified scholarship-granting organizations.

Scholarship-granting organizations will distribute the donated funds into scholarships for public, private and charter school students to pay for tuition and a variety of educational expenses. Donors can apply for a federal tax credit of up to $1,700 per year.

To date, 31 of 50 states have indicated participation in the program.