President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order to provide scholarship funds for students seeking in-person learning alternatives such as homeschooling and “pandemic learning pods” due to widespread school closures.
The scholarships, according to the order, will be made available through an existing Community Service Block Grant program under the Health and Human Services Department to disadvantaged families whose children are denied access to in-person learning. The money can be used to cover cost of private or parochial schools, homeschooling, learning pods, special education, and related services including therapies, or tutoring or remedial education.
The order doesn’t specify how much money will be set aside for the scholarship funds, or how much each student or family will be eligible for.
The expanded school choice program was meant to ensure access to education resources for all American students, including those from low-income or minority households who are disproportionately affected by school closures. The order noted that while some financially affluent families have been able to mitigate the negative effect of school closures through in-person options such as homeschooling, private schools, and learning pods, the less privileged families have had to stick to their residentially assigned public schools, where they received little or no remote learning.
“Unfortunately, more than 50 percent of all public-school students in the United States began school … (Read more)
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