KILLEEN, Texas (KWTX) – President Trump is allocating more money for education with an executive order providing emergency learning scholarships for students specifically from disadvantaged areas.
The money may be used for tuition and fees for a private school, home school, learning pods, or special education services, among others.
Rick Beaule with the Killeen Educator’s Association says he thinks the funds are being spent in the wrong places.
“This is just another attempt to try to wedge more money into for-profit education institutions,” he said.
“Taxpayer money should be funding public schools. The education code earmarks it for that and laws are passed to do that. They’re required to do that.”
President Trump says he signed the order to ensure that all children in the nation have access to educational resources as the pandemic continues.
A number of tutoring services in Central Texas say while they understand educators’ fears, there’s no real loser when it comes to educating children.
“I think that a lot of people are looking for different options,” said Chris Pittner, franchise owner of Sylvan in Harker Heights.
“The intent is to provide additional resources to see what works and what’s effective. With that said, there’s more than one way to do it, but I’m excited that we’ll have the opportunity to help some kids that normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to come to Sylvan.”
With online schools, hybrid models and overburdened teachers and students this school year, tutoring centers say they can help relieve some of the stress and strain on educational systems.
“The school districts are overwhelmed,” said Temisha Baker, owner of Educational Tutoring Systems Central Texas.
“Not all children have access to the internet, not all children have families that can sit alongside them and help them with the learning process. So, many of these children at this point have lost almost a full year of education.”
President Trump has not offered any specifics on how much money will be provided to each student or how soon it will be distributed.
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