SOAR Permanent Authorization Act

If this passes: (1) An additional $15 million annually flows to D.C. private/charter schools via scholarship expansion, with reduced public transparency on school quality and comparative performance; (2) Five-year grant renewals without recompetition reduce turnover in participating schools but also reduce accountability pressure; (3) Accreditation standards weaken—schools recognized only by language program accreditors (typically ESL-focused entities) can now participate, potentially including lower-quality institutions; (4) Pre-K expansion increases scholarship reach to younger children; (5) Tutoring services add academic support but compete for limited funds; (6) Evaluation frequency drops to every 7 years, delaying detection of program failures or impact changes. Comparable policy: Louisiana Scholarship Program (2008–present) accepted private schools with minimal accountability, leading to enrollment of unaccredited institutions, negative academic outcomes (students in program performed worse than public school peers on standardized tests per Tulane University studies 2012–2015), and eventual federal lawsuits. Mississippi Scholarship Program similarly expanded without strong accreditation requirements, resulting in enrollment in schools with low academic performance. The reduction in rigorous federal evaluation mirrors a trend favoring expansion over evidence—the bill explicitly removes comparative grade-level performance assessments that would show whether scholarship students are learning at rates comparable to peers. Non-partisan evidence: CBO and GAO have not issued specific scoring on this bill; prior research on SOAR (Mathematica Policy Research, 2010–2015) found modest positive effects on school choice satisfaction but mixed academic outcomes. The shift away from rigorous evaluation makes replication of such studies impossible going forward.