Staunch supporters of school choice got really excited during the 2016 presidential campaign when candidate Trump promised to fight for school choice and even mentioned reallocating $20 billion in federal funds to the cause.

But that excitement did not last long. It eroded quickly — and then turned into major concern.

Federal involvement may sound great when those in power completely agree with your preferred education model. But there is no telling who will hold that same power over the entire system tomorrow.

Federal education dollars are public, so government officials could decide that all voucher-accepting schools must do the same things public schools do — and autonomous private schools primarily serving voucher-using students would have a huge financial incentive to accept a hefty package of regulations.

The first evaluation of an experimental school voucher program to find negative effects on student achievement was in Louisiana — the first such program in the country and one of the most regulated in existence.

As shown by Heritage Foundation’s Lindsey Burke and me, voucher program regulation likely reduced the amount of specialization in the supply of private schools in Louisiana.

Read the full article on federal funding for school choice by Corey DeAngelis at The 74