Education Savings/Scholarship Accounts are a method of funding education with government money. Instead of only funding public schools, ESAs would provide funding to private and homeschools. Their passage is a vital means of achieving the global education goals of UNESCO (United Nation’s Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization). UNESCO’s Quality and Inclusive Education for All goal is slated for completion by 2030, and would allow for government control of every educational option through regulations and accountability measures tied to public funding. In their surprisingly transparent Global Education Monitoring Report, the authors describe how public money funding private schools, and the regulations that come with it, can be utilized as, “the main policy option to tackle education inequalities resulting from private actors’ involvement in the provision of education.”
The report further states that the, “regulation of evaluation (assessments) and accountability frameworks, play a strategic role in promoting that all publicly-funded schools, independently of their ownership, are correctly aligned with quality standards and also with the equity goals and objectives set by the government.” It then goes on to describe just a few of the equity oriented regulatory strategies that can be enforced on the private education sector. They urge all governments to, “see all institutions, students, and teachers as part of a single system. Standards, information, incentives, and accountability should help governments protect, respect, and fulfill the right to education of all, without turning their eyes away from privilege or exploitation.” ESAs are about creating an education monopoly, entangling private actors (private and home schools), under the control of the single system which funds them.
Simply put, what the government funds, the government controls and regulates. Any homeschool that receives government funds will be co-teaching with the government. Regulations will typically start small, but once the private option is eliminated, through being lumped into the single system, the regulations will become indistinguishable from those placed on other school options.