The Empowering Link: How Education Freedom Fuels Individual Liberty

In an ideal world, every child would have access to an education tailored to their unique needs, with parents freely choosing from diverse, high-quality options, irrespective of their financial means. Educators would collaborate harmoniously with parents, employing effective pedagogical practices, and innovation would continually expand and improve available educational choices. Regrettably, the current American education system falls far short of this ideal. The vast majority of students are assigned to schools based on their parents' residential location, trapping children from low-income families, unable to afford private schooling or homes in wealthier districts, in underperforming schools.

The Imperative of Educational Freedom

America's students as a whole lag behind many other industrialized nations on international tests, and students’ academic performance at the end of high school is flat. Top-down regulations intended to improve quality instead stifle diversity and innovation. To improve on these results, we should examine what sorts of education systems have consistently produced the best results across centuries and continents. What America needs is more educational freedom. Parents must be free to choose the education that’s best for their kids, no matter where they live or how much they earn. Educators must be free to determine their own curricula and methods and free to set their own prices and compensation. Schools must be free to innovate and compete to attract and retain students. And they must be both free to profit from their successes and compelled to suffer losses for their failures, because the profit-and-loss system spurs innovation, efficiency, and the dissemination of best practices.

Educational freedom is not only about escaping failing schools. Even a generally high-performing school might not be the right match for every child. Educational freedom allows parents to select the school that best meets their own children’s particular needs. In competitive markets, education providers respond to those needs by offering a variety of educational approaches and content. Those that provide a higher quality education attract more parents, thereby creating an incentive for high-quality providers to expand their operations and for others to imitate them. Markets also provide a more fertile environment for innovation. One-size-fits-all government mandates induce conformity and punish educators who stray too far from the top-down directives. By contrast, a free market gives educators the space to innovate. In order to ensure universal access to the educational marketplace, financial assistance must be available to low-income families.

The Interdependence of Educational Components

These components of educational freedom are interdependent. For example, parental choice is only meaningful if schools have the freedom and autonomy to differentiate themselves. Parents and citizens at large hold a legitimate diversity of views regarding what schools should teach and how they should teach it. But when government provides the schooling, questions of curriculum, pedagogy, morality, and sexuality are decided through the zero-sum political system. By contrast, educational freedom fosters social harmony. When parents can select the school their child attends, there is no need to fight with neighbors who hold different beliefs and educational preferences.

Historically, the only way parents have retained control over their children’s education in the long run has been for them to assume, as much as possible, the direct financial responsibility for it.

Breaking the Chains: Education and Housing

Educational freedom breaks the link between education and housing. Educational choice programs - such as scholarship tax credits or vouchers - empower families with multiple options. Ostensibly, government schooling was intended to provide equal access to a quality education for all students, regardless of their parents’ ability to pay. In practice, government schooling is highly unequal. Districts where wealthier people live tend to have better schools than lower-income districts. Wealthier families can afford to live in districts with better district schools or send their children to private schools. Poorer families find it much more difficult to escape their assigned district school. According to the federal Department of Education’s Condition of Education 2010, Indicator 36-1 (p. 107), districts with the poorest students are the highest spending. Public schools serving these students are not underperforming because they are underfunded, they are underperforming despite the fact that they are, on average, the best-funded districts in the nation.

The Rise of Alternative Schooling Models

Across the country, more families are embracing alternative schooling models - often supported by education savings accounts or scholarships that allow public dollars to follow the student. These shifts make it possible for families to design an experience that reflects their child’s needs. What would it look like if instead of 20% of kids thriving academically, it were more like 90%? The traditional model is leaving many people behind. Education freedom offers something different. It enables families to align their child’s learning style, pace, and interests with environments that foster their growth and development. Families are choosing how learning happens. In many education freedom models, success is defined by mastery, creativity, and contribution - not solely by standardized test performance.

Soar Academy is a microschool in Georgia designed for neurodivergent students who haven’t thrived in traditional environments. Its flexible, trauma-informed approach reflects how individualized education can redefine success - especially for students with autism, ADHD, or other learning differences. Among its students, many enter years behind grade level but make dramatic academic and emotional progress. Programs that are grounded in individualized learning trust parents and educators - not distant mandates - to set direction. It’s a model built on openness: experimentation, feedback, and shared insight. The result? Every student has gifts. Education freedom is about helping them discover and develop those gifts in ways that matter to them. This is a powerful shift. When students feel seen and supported, motivation increases. Learning deepens.

The Field Academy is a nonprofit organization that partners with public school districts to offer experiential, credit-earning programs that take students out of the classroom and into the real world. Students who’ve struggled in traditional settings benefit from this education freedom because they’re given another chance to reconnect through hands-on learning that honors their interests and potential.

The Expanding Ecosystem of Choice

Education freedom includes school choice, which allows families to access the best learning environment for their child, regardless of their ZIP code or income. School choice expands the ecosystem, allowing new models of innovation to emerge. This includes anything from STEM academies to arts-focused charters to hybrid homeschooling networks. Education freedom opens up the possibilities of what learning can look like. It gives families the ability to choose what works best for their child - whether that’s a traditional public school, a microschool, homeschooling, or something entirely new. One-size-fits-all education was never meant to serve unique individuals. Families know their children best, and when they have the freedom to shape their learning journey, outcomes improve - for students, communities, and society as a whole. Education freedom has become a fundamental mindset.

Education as the Practice of Freedom

As our fall semester begins, college students are filled with excitement and nervous anticipation. By my lights, they are getting ready to practice freedom in the service of learning. Back in the 18th century, the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote that enlightenment was freedom from self-imposed immaturity, describing how the process of education was the practice of freedom. When people learn-embarking on the journey of thinking for themselves in the company of others-they are experimenting with choice, autonomy, relationship and discipline. I (usually) find it thrilling to watch students experiment in these ways, and I occasionally get to join in. They are relinquishing-not completely, and certainly not all at once-their childish ways and trying on what it means to be an adult. They begin to experience that freedom from immaturity and figure out, provisionally, the kinds of lives they want to live. This normally includes, but is not limited to, the kind of work they are prepared to do.

The Erosion of Trust in Higher Education

Still, many in America have doubts about whether today’s college student is, in fact, learning to be a free adult. Some have been persuaded that college campuses no longer value the open exchange of ideas but instead demand allegiance only to ideas deemed progressive. Others see colleges as failing to practice what they preach. Children of alumni or wealthy donors have a much better chance of getting admitted to highly selective colleges than ordinary Americans; the paths to colleges believed to offer the best educations are paved with gold. The charge of unfair admissions-like the criticism of political groupthink or mindless grinding away to get grades and internships-attacks the integrity of learning as a path to freely thinking for oneself. If colleges are unfair or corrupt in choosing their students, then the value of the education offered is undermined. Unquestionably, there has been a loss of trust in higher education, and- while less dramatic, perhaps, than the loss of trust in the judiciary, the media or Congress-it undermines the ability of colleges to teach their students.

No matter how much teachers emphasize critical thinking, learning requires trust. It requires that we open ourselves to ideas and people that might have an impact on how we live. This can, of course, sometimes be disturbing, even offensive, but the deepest learning often involves reconsidering our assumptions and deeply held beliefs. I see this regularly in the class I teach, Virtue and Vice. I see undergraduates willing to stress test their moral intuitions against thinkers as varied as Aristotle and Machiavelli, Friedrich Nietzsche and Danielle Allen. I see students considering how they want to live by thinking with some of the central texts of our traditions. Each week they practice one of the traditional virtues and discuss this with their fellow students. They read, think, practice, discuss. Critics prone to exaggeration have claimed that this kind of traditional humanistic work is no longer possible because today’s colleges have been captured ideologically by the woke left. Of course, there have been pernicious examples of close-mindedness from progressive purists, but the current attempt at ideological capture by the Trump administration is far more dangerous, as well as dishonest.

Defending Education from Authoritarian Intrusion

This environment is threatened by the enormous pressure the federal government is putting on higher education to “align its priorities” with those of the president. I am worried about the normalization of this authoritarian effort to reshape the ecosystem of higher education. Too many opportunists and collaborators have been responding by noisily preaching neutrality or just keeping their heads down. Some faculty, student and alumni groups, however, have begun to stand up and make their voices heard. The groups defending their campuses from governmental intrusion are not just shielding the status quo. They are resisting attempts to undermine education as the practice of freedom, safeguarding the various ways that learning can allow students and teachers to open their minds and their hearts to new ideas and ways of living. We don’t want the government thinking for us, telling us what the president’s priorities are so that we can imitate them. We want to learn to think for ourselves in the company of others, leaving behind a dependence on authority. Authoritarians would see us impose immaturity upon ourselves. As the new school year begins, we in higher education must redouble our efforts to model and defend the enlightenment ideals of education and freedom-while we still can.

Empowering Parents Through Financial Resources

Education freedom is a concept that recognizes that all children are unique, with varying strengths and learning styles, and should have access to an educational setting that best suits their individual needs. It empowers parents with more options to make educational decisions that are in the best interest of each of their children. While many traditional public schools provide high-quality education, most are inevitably unable to meet the individual needs of every student. Some higher-income households can afford to pay for alternative education options, such as private school, if their assigned public school fails to meet their needs. However, many families lack the means to do so, particularly those with lower incomes or multiple children. This is because education freedom programs provide parents with financial resources to assist with private school tuition or other outside-the-classroom expenses, such as tutoring, online courses, and education therapies.

K-12 education savings accounts, frequently referred to as “ESAs,” are taxpayer-funded accounts that are used for educational expenses, as directed by a student’s parents. In ESA programs, which now exist in 13 states, these funds can be used for a range of educational expenses including tuition and fees at private schools, textbooks, tutoring, educational therapies for special needs students, online courses, and other approved educational services. Rather than the government providing funding through ESAs, some states offer parents assistance with many of these same types of educational expenses through refundable tax credits. Often called tuition tax credits, these programs offer dollar-for-dollar tax relief to all families eligible for the program for education-related expenses similar to those for which ESAs may be used. The value of these tax credit programs vary by state but is often comparable to the amount the state spends to educate a child in the public school system.

State-Level Initiatives in Educational Freedom

A few states have long offered parents one or more of these types of educational options, as well as other options we don’t have space to mention here. In the last 12 months, 9 states have created or expanded programs that provide more opportunities for parents. Arizona became the first state in the nation to offer ESAs in 2011, and last year, it became the first to extend the program to all K-12 students. There are currently 30,471 students and 398 schools participating in the program, known as Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Accounts. ESA funds can be used for such expenses as private school tuition, online education, education therapies, private tutoring, or future educational expenses.

On May 25th, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed into law a bill offering Oklahoma parents a tuition tax credit to cover the cost of private school tuition and fees. The tax credit value ranges from $5,000 to $7,500 and is tiered based on household income. Parents who homeschool their children are eligible for a $1,000 tax credit for each child to use for educational costs like textbooks and tutoring. Eligibility for these scholarships is limited, and a tiered priority system determines scholarship recipients.

Iowa launched applications for their new ESA program in the last week of May. By the 2025-2026 school year, all students in the state will be eligible to participate in the program. However, participation in the first year is limited only to students who attended public school the previous year, are entering kindergarten, or have a household income below 300% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). In the first weeks after applications were opened, thousands of Iowa families signed up to participate in the program. The Palmetto State passed a bill in May offering private education assistance to a limited number of South Carolina children. The South Carolina Education Scholarship Trust Fund ESA Program offers qualifying families $6,000 per student to spend on qualifying education expenses including (but not limited to) private school tuition, tutoring, fees for national norm-referenced tests, unbundled courses, and up to $750 for associated transportation services.

In January, Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed into law a bill that grants all Utah K-12 students access to ESAs that can be used to pay for approved education goods and services beginning with the 2024-2025 academic year. Valued at $8,000 per student, ESA funding can be used for qualifying education services such as private school tuition and fees, tutoring, testing fees, special needs services and therapies, and up to $750 per school year for transportation services. While all Utah students are eligible for the program, participation will be significantly limited by legislatively appropriated funding in the first year. In the first two years of the program, eligibility for this new ESA will be restricted and capped, but by 2025, all K-12 students will qualify. These ESAs will be valued at 90% of the state’s prior year’s average per-pupil foundation funding (around $6,600 in its initial year) and can be used by parents to customize their child’s education by allocating funds for such expenses as private school tuition and fees, testing, tutoring, and transportation.

This year, Florida changed the state’s Family Empowerment Scholarship Voucher into an ESA and expanded the program to include all K-12 students. The value of each ESA account varies by student based on several criteria including grade, county of residence, and public school spending for students with disabilities. Compared to these states, education freedom in Mississippi is very limited. Our state does have an ESA program, but only students with special needs qualify to participate.

Education as a Path to Personal Liberation

The College of the Holy Cross was the only true opportunity that I had to leave Savannah for college. And this opportunity only came about as a result of the dedication and kindness of my high school chemistry teacher and a classmate from parochial school, who was a student there. But college gave me the opportunity to take on the challenges of education during a most critical time in my life. And, as is true for so many in this country, education was the only available opportunity to escape a life that seemed predetermined for me. I must first admit that I am somewhat old-fashioned about education. I opposed the move away from the old core requirements and traditional liberal arts education, and I still hold tenaciously to that position. Perhaps it is in some small measure due to my misfortune of having been subjected to “new math” in the ninth and tenth grades. The traditional liberal arts education was a way of showing us that we were to discipline, train, and expand our minds. It provided fewer opportunities to justify intellectual laziness and almost no opportunity to avoid some of the more difficult and exacting courses. Of course, it would be a fair question to ask why anyone would want to put that kind of stress on himself or herself. To respond to this inquiry requires that I set out what, in retrospect, I see that education provides.

Because they did not have the benefit of education or freedom, my grandparents treasured them both. Freedom they felt would come, so we had to be prepared to take advantage of it. And, even if it didn’t, they felt that we would be better off educated. Suddenly, our lives revolved around education. Under no circumstances were we to miss a day of school. Thus, we were required to eat properly, get plenty of sleep, and take regular doses of castor and cod liver oils to avoid any illnesses that could potentially lead to absences. Then there was the warning that no excuses would be accepted and all illnesses would be presumed to be feigned. Indeed, my grand-father announced that if we died, he would take us to school for three consecutive days to make sure that we were not faking. Not a day passed that we did not receive a lecture on the importance of education. This attitude toward education and work was constantly reinforced by family members and neighbors. From my perspective, things did not look good. There seemed to be little hope that I would be allowed to become the next Bob Cousy or Jim Brown, since I could only pilfer tiny morsels of time to pursue my dreams of athletic stardom. But education was the road to freedom and independence. It was the promise of possibilities beyond the cramped oppressive worlds of segregation and ignorance.

Reclaiming Control Through Educational Choice

The Educational Freedom, often referred to as "School Choice," is an effective educational policy that empowers parents to select the optimal learning environment for their children based on individual needs and preferences. Our belief is rooted in providing every child access to a high-quality education, regardless of economic status, location, or school ranking. Recognizing that education isn't a uniform concept, we advocate for diverse options including public, private, parochial, charter, homeschooling, hybrid, and pod schooling. Educational Freedom enables parents the ability to select educational options that align with their child's unique learning style, interests, and needs. When parents can choose among various schools, educational institutions are incentivized to improve their programs and services to attract and retain students. Educational Freedom can provide access to a variety of educational philosophies, teaching methods, and curriculum approaches. Educational freedom empowers parents to have a more active role in their child's education. Having access to choose can be particularly beneficial for students with special needs or learning differences. In traditional public-school systems, families are typically assigned to a specific school based on their residential address.

Fostering Innovation and Engagement

Educational Freedom fosters innovation in education as different schools’ experiment with new teaching methods, technologies, and approaches. With Educational Freedom, parents tend to be more engaged and invested in their child's education since they actively choose the school. Teachers Unions, the American Federation for Teachers and the National Educators Association have made their political agenda for public education clear over the last few years and parents have had enough.

Celebrating Freedom and Choice

As we gather to celebrate the Fourth of July, marking the birth of American independence, we reflect not only on the freedoms we cherish but also on the enduring values that define our nation. The fireworks that light up our skies, the patriotic songs that fill the air, the delicious smell of a good cookout, all remind us of the sacrifices made for our liberty. Just as our forefathers fought for the right to self-determination, today’s parents and educators strive for the right to shape their children’s educational journeys. Education freedom is about giving families the power to make choices that best suit their unique needs. It acknowledges that every child is different with distinct learning styles, interests, and paces. With education freedom, parents can explore a variety of educational options, including homeschooling, online learning, charter schools, private schools, and hybrid models.

In recent years, the landscape of education has evolved significantly, offering a variety of options that cater to diverse learning styles and preferences. From traditional public and private schools to charter schools, homeschooling, and online education, families can now choose the path that aligns with their values and goals. School choice is more than just a policy; it is a fundamental principle that acknowledges the diverse needs of students and the right of parents to decide what is best for their children.

Key Benefits of Education Freedom

Personalized Learning: Students have different learning styles, strengths, and interests.
Higher Quality Education: Competition among schools can lead to higher educational standards.
Increased Parental Involvement: When parents can choose their child’s school, they are more likely to be involved in their education.

One shining example of education freedom in action is Optima Academy Online. This innovative online school delivered through virtual reality provides a flexible and comprehensive, immersive educational experience that allows students to learn from anywhere. Optima Academy Online stands at the forefront of the movement for education freedom, combining cutting-edge technology with a commitment to time-tested learning.

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