This bill permanently authorizes and updates the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results (SOAR) Act by extending grant durations, adjusting residency and accreditation rules, expanding fund usage to include pre-K, and revising evaluation and reporting requirements.
Ron Johnson
Senator
WI
The SOAR Permanent Authorization Act extends and modifies the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results (SOAR) Act. This legislation renews grant durations, updates requirements for participating schools and grant recipients, and expands the authorized uses of scholarship funds to include pre-kindergarten expenses. The bill also revises standardized testing and evaluation procedures for the program, while increasing the overall authorization of appropriations.
DC Private School Voucher Program Gets $75 Million Permanent Upgrade and Expanded Reach
The SOAR Permanent Authorization Act is moving to make the District of Columbia’s private school voucher program a forever fixture of the city’s education landscape. Instead of waiting for periodic renewals from Congress, the bill sets a permanent annual budget of $75 million starting in 2027—a significant jump from the previous $60 million cap. It also gives the Department of Education the green light to hand out five-year grants to the organizations running these scholarships, with an easy-pass renewal for another five years if they’re doing a decent job. For parents, the biggest immediate change is that these funds can now be used for pre-K, not just K-12, helping families get a head start on tuition before their kids even hit elementary school.
Widening the Net and the Neighborhood
Under the new rules, the 'Washington metropolitan region' is getting a much broader definition. Previously, the folks running these scholarship organizations mostly had to live in DC; now, a majority of board members can hail from suburban Maryland (Montgomery and Prince George’s) or Northern Virginia (Arlington, Fairfax, Alexandria, and Falls Church). This shift acknowledges that the DC workforce is regional, but it might raise eyebrows for those who want local DC residents to stay in the driver’s seat of local programs. Additionally, the bill introduces a '5-year clock' for new schools joining the program: they don’t have to be fully accredited on day one, but they must cross that finish line within five years of starting the process.
Tutoring, Tech, and Transparency Tweaks
If your child is struggling in class, this bill adds a layer of support by explicitly allowing scholarship money to cover professional tutoring. If funds are tight, kids coming from the lowest-performing public schools get first dibs on those extra study sessions. On the data side, the bill swaps out some old reporting requirements for new ones. Schools will no longer have to report how their scholarship kids compare to the rest of the grade in their specific building. Instead, they’ll have to cough up data on 'school climate'—specifically incidents of violence, suspensions, and expulsions. It’s a trade-off: we might lose some granular academic comparison data, but we gain a clearer picture of whether these private options are actually safer environments for students.
The Long-Term Report Card
To keep everyone honest, the bill mandates a 'rigorous' evaluation of the program every seven years, with the first big report due by January 1, 2028. This isn't just a quick check-in; researchers will be looking at everything from graduation rates and college persistence to how satisfied parents actually are with the switch. While the increased funding and pre-K expansion offer a clear win for families looking for alternatives to the public system, the bill does give the organizations running the program the 'sole authority' to lower the maximum scholarship amount if they choose. This means that while the total pot of money is bigger, the individual check a family receives could theoretically shrink if the administrators decide to spread the wealth across more students.