Education freedom on agenda for 2025 legislative session

By Michael G. Pauley
Executive Director, SDCC

Parents who want more choices for educating their children have much at stake in the 2025 legislative session. Lawmakers are considering House Bill 1020, a measure that would usher in an “education savings account” or ESA program for South Dakota families. Here’s how an ESA works: the state deposits a portion of taxpayer dollars allocated for education (about $3,000 per student is proposed) into a parent-controlled education savings account, which could be used for specific educational expenses authorized by law, such as non-public school tuition, purchasing curricula for home education, or fees for online classes. This mechanism empowers parents to select an educational path that works best for the unique needs of their child. It also introduces a new model for how we pay for education in South Dakota: Money follows the child. First and foremost, we should fund students not systems. This empowers the customers — students and their families — to choose an educational pathway that works best for them, rather than settling for whatever a government-run monopoly decides to offer.

HB 1020 is strongly supported by the governor and by Secretary of Education Dr. Joe Graves. In a recent column for the Dakota Scout, Dr. Graves explained: “For a myriad of reasons, some parents view the default option, public school, as less than appealing. They want a different opportunity for their child, and they should have options.”

The South Dakota Catholic Conference also supports passage of HB 1020, because its objective of giving parents more educational freedom aligns with Catholic social teaching. The Second Vatican Council taught that parents have the “primary and inalienable right and duty to educate their children…” Because of this, the Fathers of the Council believed it was imperative that “public subsidies are paid out in such a way that parents are truly free to choose according to their conscience the schools they want for their children” (Gravissimum Educationis, 20).

For too many South Dakota families, educational freedom is significantly limited by their income level, their zip code, or both. The proposed ESA program in HB 1020 moves us closer to the day when all families will have the freedom to choose the learning option that best enables their children to succeed in life.

The benefits of adopting an ESA program are compelling. Extensive studies conducted in other states show that educational choice programs improve the academic performance of all students — including those in public schools. The reason for this is simple: competition promotes excellence. To quote again from Secretary of Education Dr. Joe Graves, “In every field of human endeavor, performance improves with greater levels of competition. In this way, ESAs will benefit public schools as well. Let’s unleash that powerful force for improvement on all schools.”

Your help is needed to advance this important policy. Please contact your legislators and urge them to support and cosponsor HB 1020. You can find their contact information at www.sdlegislature.gov. You can also learn more about HB 1020 by visiting www.sdcatholicconference.org.