Military children also deserve the option to choose their schools

A new report on federally run schools for more than 66,000 military-connected children highlights concerning practices and underscores the urgent need for Congress to ensure education freedom for military parents stationed overseas.

Open the Books, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing transparency in government spending, released “Schools for Radicals” last week, a report delving into an official Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) teacher training. The training revealed classroom technology, such as Google Classroom and Pear Deck, have the capabilities to allow educators to monitor students’ emotions throughout the day and to serve as an archive for personal data, which is different from a student’s official record.

The report also reveals that, as the result of collaboration between the Modern Military Association of America and DODEA, schools can update a gender-confused child’s “affirmed” name, upon student request, in 24 hours in Google Classroom, which activists have long claimed is necessary as a mental health intervention. It is unclear whether this would require parental consent.

Parents may wonder why DODEA, which the report shows has continually stymied parental and congressional inquiries into very basic information about policies and curriculum, seems to be expanding its mission to include invasive mental health interventions. Many would argue that DODEA has no business taking more control of kids, especially as it continues to avoid the accountability that parents have been demanding for decades.

Last year, the Bahrain School, a DODEA school in the Middle East, faced congressional scrutiny after parents spoke anonymously to the press to publicize the treatment they and their children had experienced from school staff. Parents claimed that the schools ignored their concerns, many teachers were unqualified, special education students were not accommodated, and course requirements were lax and did not prepare students well for reentry after a return to schools in the United States, among other serious complaints.

Decades of Concern about DODEA

Interestingly, I connected with a military parent stationed in Korea, who sent me a link to a congressional hearing on military dependent schools from 1988. I was shocked to see that the issues military parents are identifying today are many of the exact issues that were brought to Congress 36 years ago. Furthermore, a witness at the hearing from the National Military Family Association ended her testimony by saying she hoped that “perhaps the 20-year ‘closed system’ that has been [DODEA] … will become the open and accountable system that military parents would have if they were living in the United States.”

Yet the lack of accountability persists. And just as these concerns spanned schools across the globe in 1988, they span the globe today. I’ve heard stories from parents all over the world about the serious issues they encountered in their DODEA schools — including child abuse — that were never resolved. And, though many may not realize it, child abuse at DODEA — child on child, teacher on child, and predators in the classroom and administration — is prevalent.

As service members were serving and sacrificing for our great nation, families were trusting that the issues would be resolved. It’s disheartening to learn that little seems to have changed. Indeed, as Open the Books, the Claremont Institute, and numerous articles over the past couple of years have shown, the problems have worsened with the advent of the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) hydra, with its radical gender ideology, social-emotional learning, and critical race theory offshoots.

Pilot Program

But hope is on the horizon for military parents. After the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel sent a delegation to Bahrain in January to meet face-to-face with parents, Chairman Jim Banks, R-Ind., included language in the House-passed fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that creates a pilot program for school vouchers for military families and Department of Defense (DOD) civilians stationed overseas.

This has drawn the ire of the nation’s two largest teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, which believe, respectively, that voucher programs don’t work and that this program would be wide open for fraud and abuse if taxpayer dollars are given to international schools. But many parents are willing to take their chances at international schools already attended by children of State Department officials, especially after their poor experiences at intransigent DODEA schools. And organizations such as Independent Women’s Voice and the Military Kids Special Education Alliance have voiced their strong support. Though the school choice pilot program would begin in Bahrain, parents I have spoken with in other DODEA locations around the world also have expressed support for the program.

School choice has been a resounding success and a powerful recruitment tool for children of State Department personnel since 1955. In congressional hearings on the education allowance, the State Department “did not want to limit employees’ freedom to educate their dependents as they pleased.” And, curiously, the teachers unions and congressional Democrats have never sought to deny this program to State Department children.

Banks’ pilot program for 30 students would use the same regulations the State Department uses for its tried-and-true program. Indeed, DODEA already uses these regulations for its Non-DOD Schools Program, which provides an education allowance for military children stationed outside the service area of a DODEA school. But in Bahrain, DOD only pays for military and DOD children to attend the DODEA school, while the children of State Department personnel can use an education allowance at DODEA or at any approved school in Bahrain. The voucher is approximately $26,000 for elementary school, $27,000 for middle school, and $29,000 for high school.

For those families that are happy with DODEA, which the unions and DODEA claim are numerous, they would be free to stay, but under the Banks pilot program, families that know their children would thrive elsewhere would be free to spend their vouchers at a private school of their choice. And if DODEA wants families to remain in their schools, the competition with international schools for their business might be the best catalyst for change.

In the meantime, DODEA appears to be a fundamentally flawed bureaucracy. Our military families and children have been held captive for far too long, and school choice, where the money follows the child, is a 21st-century solution for a 20th-century relic that has shown itself either unwilling or unable to change. This is why House and Senate negotiators must prioritize keeping Banks’ pilot program for education vouchers in the fiscal 2025 NDAA during forthcoming reconciliation of the House and sure-to-pass Senate versions of the bill.

Amy Haywood is a former senior legislative assistant for a U.S. House representative. She writes The Primary Educator newsletter, which can be found at theprimaryeducator.com.