The Senate parliamentarian, an adviser to the upper chamber on rules and procedures, struck the Educational Choice for Children Act from U.S. President Donald Trump’s reconciliation “big beautiful bill.”
The legislation, which Orthodox Jewish groups have championed, would have created “a pool of federal tax credits to fund scholarships for private schools—including yeshivot and Jewish day schools,” the Orthodox Union stated. A House version funded $5 billion over four years, and the Senate version would have “made it permanent but lowered funding to $4 billion a year, starting in 2027,” per the OU.
Nathan Diament, executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, stated that the cut was a “very disappointing setback for millions of American families seeking educational opportunity and affordability.”
The bill “offers a historic chance to empower parents, including thousands in the Jewish community, to choose the education that best meets their children’s needs,” Diament stated. “While it appears that this policy will not move forward in the ‘one big beautiful bill,’ we remain committed to working with our allies in Congress to advance school choice legislation in other ways.”
Diament told JNS that the proposed legislation was to provide a tax credit of up to $5,000 for donations to scholarship-granting entities.
“Effectively, it wouldn’t actually cost the donor anything. They would donate $5,000 and then when it came time to file taxes the next year, they’d be able to deduct that amount from what they owe,” he told JNS. “These organizations would then be able to raise a lot of money to give out scholarships to attend Jewish day schools, Catholic schools or other private schools.”
Senate reconciliation rules allow a majority to pass legislation but not major new policy measures, according to Diament.
“Sometimes the parliamentarian rules that a provision doesn’t fit even if it’s a tax credit. She might decide that creating a new program is more of a policy change than a tax issue,” he told JNS. “She doesn’t explain her reasoning, but we can speculate that’s why it was removed from the bill.” (Elizabeth MacDonough is the Senate parliamentarian.)
The OU stated that the bill would require 60 votes in the Senate, “effectively sidelining it from the rest of the fast-tracked package.”
Rabbi A.D. Motzen, national director of government affairs at Agudath Israel of America, told JNS that the Jewish advocacy group will consider alternative ways to push the legislation forward.
“While we are disappointed that the Senate parliamentarian attempted to remove the scholarship tax credit from the reconciliation bill, we are not giving up,” he told JNS.
“Agudath Israel is working with its coalition partners and Senate allies to overcome this challenge,” he said. “Congress still has an opportunity to enact a tax credit proposal that will help millions of children.”