[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 1 (Monday, January 4, 2021)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 219-221]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-29235]


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  Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 1 / Monday, January 4, 2021 / 
Presidential Documents  

[[Page 219]]


                Executive Order 13969 of December 28, 2020

                
Expanding Educational Opportunity Through School 
                Choice

                By the authority vested in me as President by the 
                Constitution and the laws of the United States of 
                America, and in order to ensure the education, health, 
                safety, and well-being of America's children, our most 
                essential resource upon which the future of our great 
                Nation depends, it is hereby ordered as follows:

                Section 1. Purpose. As part of their efforts to address 
                the public health challenges and uncertainties posed by 
                the COVID-19 pandemic, State and local officials shut 
                down in-person learning for the vast majority of our 
                more than 56 million elementary and secondary school 
                students beginning in late February and early March of 
                this year. Since then, however, our Nation has 
                identified effective measures to facilitate the safe 
                resumption of in-person learning, and the Federal 
                Government has provided more than $13 billion to States 
                and school districts to implement those measures.

                The prolonged deprivation of in-person learning 
                opportunities has produced undeniably dire consequences 
                for the children of this country. The Centers for 
                Disease Control and Prevention has stated that school 
                attendance is negatively correlated with a child's risk 
                of depression and various types of abuse. States have 
                seen substantial declines in reports of child 
                maltreatment while school buildings have been closed, 
                indicating that allegations are going unreported. These 
                reductions are driven in part by social isolation from 
                the schoolteachers and support staff with whom students 
                typically interact and who have an obligation to report 
                suspected child maltreatment. The American Academy of 
                Pediatrics (AAP) has also found that school closures 
                have a ``substantial impact on food security and 
                physical activity for children and families.'' 
                Additionally, a recent survey of educators found 
                student absences from school, including virtual 
                learning, have nearly doubled during the pandemic, and 
                as AAP has noted, chronic absenteeism is associated 
                with alcohol and drug use, teenage pregnancy, juvenile 
                delinquency, and suicide attempts.

                School closures are especially difficult for families 
                with children with special needs. Schools provide not 
                only academic supports for students with special needs, 
                but they also provide much-needed in-person therapies 
                and services, including physical and occupational 
                therapies. A recent survey found that 80 percent of 
                children with special needs are not receiving the 
                services and supports to which they are entitled and 
                that approximately 40 percent of children with special 
                needs are receiving no services or supports. Moreover, 
                the survey found that virtual learning may not be fully 
                accessible to these students, as children with special 
                needs are twice as likely to receive little or no 
                remote learning and to be dissatisfied with the remote 
                learning received.

                Low-income and minority children are also 
                disproportionately affected by school closures. In low-
                income zip codes, students' math progress decreased by 
                nearly 50 percent while school buildings were closed in 
                the spring, and the math progress of students in 
                middle-income zip codes fell by almost a third during 
                the same period. A recent analysis projected that, if 
                in-person classes do not fully resume until January 
                2021, Hispanic, Black, and low-income students will 
                lose 9.2, 10.3, and 12.4 months of learning, 
                respectively.

[[Page 220]]

                A failure to quickly resume in-person learning options 
                is likely to have long-term economic effects on 
                children and their families. According to a recent 
                study, if in-person classes do not fully resume until 
                January 2021, the average student could lose $61,000 to 
                $82,000 in lifetime earnings, or the equivalent of a 
                year of full-time work. Additionally, in 2019, more 
                than 90 percent of children under the age of 18 had at 
                least one employed parent. Many employed parents do not 
                have the option of engaging in remote work that allows 
                them the flexibility to supervise their children during 
                the day when in-person learning options are not 
                available. Without the resumption of in-person learning 
                opportunities, the economic and social harms resulting 
                from such lost employment opportunities will continue 
                to compound.

                To help mitigate these harms, the Department of Health 
                and Human Services recently announced additional relief 
                for low-income parents by allowing States to use funds 
                available through the Child Care and Development Fund 
                to subsidize child care services and services that 
                supplement academic instruction for children under the 
                age of 13 who are participating in virtual instruction. 
                Nevertheless, virtual instruction is an inadequate 
                substitute for in-person learning opportunities and 
                this aid is insufficient to meet current needs.

                While some families, especially those with financial 
                means, have been able to mitigate school disruptions 
                through in-person options such as homeschooling, 
                private schools, charter schools, and innovative models 
                like microschools and ``learning pods,'' for many 
                families, their children's residentially assigned 
                public school remains their only financially available 
                option. Unfortunately, more than 50 percent of all 
                public-school students in the United States began 
                school remotely this fall. These children, including 
                those with special needs, are being underserved due to 
                the public education system's failure to provide in-
                person learning options.

                Students whose families pay tuition for their education 
                are also facing significant hardships due to the 
                economic disruptions caused by the pandemic. Scores of 
                private schools, including approximately 100 Catholic 
                schools, have permanently closed since the onset of 
                COVID-19, and more than half of our Nation's private 
                schools are believed to have lost enrollment due to the 
                pandemic. These closures and declining enrollments are 
                harmful to students, bad for communities, and likely to 
                impose increased strain on public school systems.

                I am committed to ensuring that all children of our 
                great Nation have access to the educational resources 
                they need to obtain a high-quality education and to 
                improving students' safety and well-being, including by 
                empowering families with emergency learning 
                scholarships.

                Sec. 2. Providing Emergency Learning Scholarships for 
                Students. The Secretary of Health and Human Services 
                shall take steps, consistent with law, to allow funds 
                available through the Community Services Block Grant 
                program to be used by grantees and eligible entities to 
                provide emergency learning scholarships to 
                disadvantaged families for use by any child without 
                access to in-person learning. These scholarships may be 
                used for:

(i) tuition and fees for a private or parochial school;

(ii) homeschool, microschool, or learning-pod costs;

(iii) special education and related services, including therapies; or

(iv) tutoring or remedial education.

                Sec. 3. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order 
                shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or 
the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget 
relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

[[Page 221]]

                    (b) This order shall be implemented consistent with 
                applicable law and subject to the availability of 
                appropriations.
                    (c) This order is not intended to, and does not, 
                create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, 
                enforceable at law or in equity by any party against 
                the United States, its departments, agencies, or 
                entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any 
                other person.
                
                
                    (Presidential Sig.)

                THE WHITE HOUSE,

                    December 28, 2020.

[FR Doc. 2020-29235
Filed 12-31-20; 11:15 am]
Billing code 3295-F1-P