The Association of Christian Schools International is promoting a new Education Freedom Tax Credit that it lobbied for and was included in President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” he signed into law last July 4.
“The OBBB included a very big win for Christian education with passage of the flagship school choice law,” ACSI said four days later.
Starting January 2027, people in participating states can get a 100% tax credit of up to $1,700 for making donations to groups qualified to receive them, which are known as scholarship-granting organizations, or SGOs.
The SGOs can devote donated funds for private school tuition, tutoring or other education-related expenses to benefit K-12 students, whether in public or private schools or homeschooled.
Temple Weiss
“We believe that thousands of students could benefit from contributions from like-minded donors to help students attend Christian schools who wouldn’t otherwise be able to do so,” said Temple Weiss, president of ACSI Education Foundation.
Weiss lives in Dallas and has an intimate knowledge of Christian education. For decades he has attended Prestonwood Baptist Church and worked with Prestonwood Christian Academy, where his children attended.
He’s currently creating a new team for ACSI’s “Every Student. Every State” campaign, which will reach out to Christian schools, churches and business networks to build awareness.
“This new initiative could see hundreds of millions of dollars ultimately being awarded to students attending Christian schools,” Weiss said. ACSI calls the new credit “a defining moment for school choice in our nation.”
ACSI, a nonprofit based in Colorado Springs, was founded in 1978 and represents 2,200 Christian schools in the U.S. and thousands more worldwide.
One of ACSI’s affiliated nonprofits advocated for the new tax credit with administration officials and another ACSI affiliate is qualified to receive the donations.
ACSI’s advocacy work on the tax credit was done by school choice specialists in its public policy department and by its Educational Foundation, an affiliated nonprofit.
The work of educating and persuading people to use the credit falls to another ACSI affiliate organization, Children’s Tuition Fund, an SGO that promotes “school choice advocacy.”
ACSI’s “Every Student. Every State” campaign is trying to persuade American citizens and Christian schools to take advantage of the credit.
Weiss says ACSI-member schools know about the new tax credit, but not all know how to “operationalize” it. There also are thousands of Christian schools not affiliated with ACSI that may partner with ACSI’s Children’s Tuition Fund to receive the donations for their students.
One wrinkle of the law: Each of the 50 states must opt in before donors in each state can get the credits and before schools or students can receive the funds. ACSI says the green states on its map have signed on while the blue states have not.
Average annual tuition for ACSI-member schools in the U.S. is around $10,000, Weiss said, with many families paying for more than one child. He said previous legislation and tax credits have increased Christian school enrollment.
One Texas school Weiss works with saw calls about admission triple after the state passed “school choice” bills that made private school tuition more affordable, he said.
The “Every Student. Every State” campaign criticizes “school choice myths,” but in his interview, Weiss largely confirmed the myths are true.
ACSI’s “Myth No. 1” says: “School choice takes money from traditional public schools.” But that’s exactly what’s happening in some states, including Ohio and Arizona, that have adopted school choice or voucher programs.
“Billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country,” reported the Washington Post in 2024, “as state voucher programs expand dramatically and the line separating public education and religion fades.”
“Billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country.”
ACSI’s “Myth No. 2” says: “Private schools are unaccountable.” But Weiss confirmed that ACSI remains opposed to Christian schools receiving any direct state or federal funding that could limit their independence and entail government oversight. “We’re not interested in receiving state funding that requires regulation of private religious schools,” he said.
Accountability for schools that benefit from vouchers comes through the power of choice, Weiss said. “If parents think their children are not getting a good education, they can withdraw.”
The Education Department has issued guidelines for the Education Freedom Tax Credit, and the Treasury Department issued tax credit guidance June 10.
Trump has promoted school choice and issued a January proclamation on the subject during National School Choice Week: “For 250 glorious years, our nation has been sustained by a simple yet powerful truth: The American people — not bureaucrats, politicians or left-wing activists — have the God-given right to secure their own destiny. This National School Choice Week, we reaffirm this sacred principle, and we renew our commitment to empowering every American parent with the freedom to forge their family’s — and our nation’s — future.”
The proclamation was accompanied by photos of blue state governors, each of whom was labeled “FAILURE.”
The new Education Freedom Tax Credit also may be used at qualifying Jewish schools, but its nor clear how easy it will be for Muslim schools to participate.
“As school choice programs expand across the United States, a critical question is emerging: Who truly has access to them and who is being left out?,” asked the Islamic Schools League of America. “For many Muslim families and Islamic schools, the answer remains uncertain.”
The league says Muslim schools have run into problems and encountered Islamophobia in trying to access sc