Back to School Is Different This Year

Every August, America goes back to school. The backpacks are packed, buses roll and parents hope their children get the right teacher.

But back to school is different than it used to be. The question is no longer simply whether the schools are ready. It is: Ready for what?

Families are entering an education landscape that has changed dramatically. Parents have more power and more options than they did even five years ago. States are expanding education savings accounts, scholarships and other ways for families to direct their children’s education. New federal scholarship opportunities are approaching. At the same time, educators and entrepreneurs are creating microschools, hybrid schools, classical academies, outdoor programs and learning models that did not fit neatly into yesterday’s system.

This is not a declaration of victory. Academic performance remains deeply troubling, and too many children are still trapped in schools that do not teach them well or expect enough of them. But after decades of pushing the same rock uphill, something important has changed: Parents have moved. Policy has moved. Educators and entrepreneurs have moved. Too much of schooling has not—and families are no longer waiting for it.

I recently discussed this more hopeful moment with Kimberley Strassel of The Wall Street Journal. Hope, however, is not complacency. The next stage of education freedom will be harder and more practical than winning the argument that parents deserve choices. Now we must make those choices real, visible, excellent and plentiful enough for ordinary families to use.

And we should not assume that passing choice laws settles the argument. New research examining charters, vouchers, education savings accounts and other forms of educational choice suggests that families with direct experience are more likely to support expanding those opportunities. But it also shows how powerfully political framing can shape what people think.

That tells us something important. Families need to know what is available, see that it works and have excellent options worth choosing. Freedom has to be experienced before it becomes something people will fight to preserve.

That begins with funding. We cannot do choice on the cheap.

A state may call a program universal, but the promise means little if only a small number of children can participate or if the funding is too meager to support a real education. Full and fair funding must follow the family. Schools need resources to hire excellent teachers, secure facilities and build programs that are genuinely different—not merely reproduce the system families are trying to leave.

The new federal scholarship tax credit, scheduled to begin in 2027, could be a major accelerant. It will allow taxpayers to receive a federal tax credit of up to $1,700 for contributions to qualifying scholarship-granting organizations, which can help students pay for eligible elementary and secondary educational expenses. Thirty states have now made advance elections to participate for 2027.

And its potential reach underscores something that is too often lost when education freedom is reduced to a fight over “vouchers.” The organizing principle should not be one sector over another. It should be the child.

Education freedom is about giving families the power to assemble the education that works best for their child.

Yet even good funding policy cannot manufacture a great school. Policy can open the door. People still have to walk through it and build.

That is the most encouraging development I see as this school year begins. For many years, education reform concentrated largely on demand: giving parents the legal right to choose. Today, the most exciting work is increasingly on the supply side—creating the schools, programs and learning environments from which families can actually choose.

Through the Yass Prize and the Center for Education Reform, I have had a front-row seat to this explosion of invention. Educators are designing programs around how children learn, not around adult contracts or institutional habits. Some students learn outside three days a week and inside two. Some military children can continue in the same learning model when their families move from one state to another. Teachers can contribute according to their expertise rather than being confined to one job description and one schedule. More adults with real knowledge and experience can surround students.

And freedom is not simply helping children who leave district schools. It is beginning to change the behavior of the districts themselves.

In our conversation, I told Kim about an educational entrepreneur who left a public school system and created her own microschool after the district would not let her innovate. The district later invited her back—to create microschools inside the very system she had left. In states where meaningful numbers of families can direct meaningful education dollars, districts are recognizing that they must do something different and do it better.

That is what choice was always supposed to accomplish: not the destruction of public education, but its renewal around the public it exists to serve. Public education is a public purpose. It does not require one uniform delivery system. A terrific district school should thrive. So should a terrific charter, private school, faith-based school, microschool, apprenticeship or hybrid program. The child—not the label over the door—must be the organizing principle.

This shift also creates enormous possibilities for teachers. Too often we speak as though educators must choose between a rigid district structure and leaving the profession. But many teachers want something different too: more freedom, greater recognition of their talents and the ability to teach in ways that make sense for their students. The new education landscape can give them places to land—and opportunities to lead.

All of this brings us to the question beneath every policy debate: What is education for?

It is not merely to move students through grades, award credentials or produce acceptable test scores. Academic achievement is essential, but it is also evidence of something larger. Education should help a young person read, reason, exercise judgment, build relationships, find purpose, contribute and flourish.

That is also why I wrote The Education Avengers. After a career spent working on policy, I wanted to understand the human beings who act when policy, institutions and accepted practice fail a child. The people in the book come from very different backgrounds and communities, but each reaches a point when a child, a family or a community is being diminished—and decides not to look away.

They do not wait for a system to save them. They build.

This year’s back-to-school story is therefore rosier, but it is not rosy. The old failures remain, and in many places they are impossible to ignore. The difference is that families now have more power, builders have more opportunity and new models are proving that education does not have to remain fixed in place.

The question for parents, policymakers and educators is no longer simply whether students have returned to school. It is whether they have returned to a place where they are known, challenged and prepared to flourish.

That is what “ready” should mean now.