New tax plan provides little cheer for education

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, the battle over tax reform provided unprecedented political theater in Washington. There were so many drama-filled, gasp-worthy battles over the House and Senate bills that Twitter, let alone more traditional news outlets, could barely keep political junkies up-to-date. Since tax reform will likely be a done deal by the time this column is published, I will do my best to provide the Washington view of the battleground.

The war of words erupted in November, when House Republicans — and then, later in the month, their colleagues in the Senate — introduced their plans to reform the nation’s tax code for the first time in 27 years. Their bills went after a whole host of things our nation claims to care about, but the clearest target was education, both at the K-12 and postsecondary levels.

It is no secret that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and President Donald Trump strongly support school choice, and DeVos, in particular, has looked for opportunities to support school choice programs. The House bill found a way to push this agenda by allowing families to use their state 529 college savings plans to pay for K-12 education expenses, such as private school tuition. This backdoor plan to allow more families to pursue private school options would be the first of its kind at the federal level.