EVERETT, Pennsylvania — On a humid stretch of late summer, in the kind of Pennsylvania where school buses still trace two-lane roads past cornfields and corner diners, education policy rarely arrives as a headline. Instead, it shows up in quieter ways. For example, a parent asking about tutoring after a shift change, or a grandparent wondering if a child could finally afford a different school.
That is the space Glenn Youngkin is trying to step into.
The former Virginia governor, now launching a national group called Empowering America’s Parents, is making a direct appeal to states such as Pennsylvania, where leaders have so far declined to opt into a new federal program tied to President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
At the center of it is something called the education freedom tax credit, a scholarship pool funded by private donations and backed by federal tax credits — money, Youngkin insists, that does not touch state budgets but which could reshape how families make decisions about their children’s education.
“Overwhelmingly, parents want this,” Youngkin said in an interview with the Washington Examiner, framing the issue less as partisan combat and more as a kitchen-table calculation.
The program, he notes, would reach families earning up to three times the median income, roughly 90% of households, covering everything from private school tuition to tutoring, transportation, and services for children with disabilities.
In practical terms, that could mean a student in Westmoreland County getting help with reading after school, or a family in Erie finding a way to pay for specialized support they could not otherwise afford.
But the map of who gets access and who does not is already uneven.
Virginia opted in early, under Youngkin. So did neighboring states such as West Virginia and Ohio. Pennsylvania did not.
Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) has not yet opted into the education freedom tax credit, and his office has said the governor is continuing to review the program before deciding whether the state should participate.
In other education debates, Shapiro has also said he wants to avoid turning schools into a partisan battleground, arguing that “our families” need real help and that state leaders should focus on delivering resources rather than getting stuck in prolonged fights over policy. In the same vein, his budget choices have shown a preference for boosting public education through state funding rather than embracing voucher-style programs, a position that puts him on the other side of Youngkin’s new push.
That disparity is what Youngkin calls “just silly,” though his criticism runs sharper than that. He argues that governors who decline the program are letting politics override opportunity, pointing in particular to Democratic states that have held back. In his telling, the resistance is less about policy mechanics and more about pressure from teachers’ unions, who have long argued that school choice programs siphon attention and resources from public schools.
Youngkin counters that claim directly, emphasizing that the scholarships are additive — they are built from private contributions rather than state tax dollars.
GLENN YOUNGKIN LAUNCHES NATIONAL SCHOOL CHOICE MOVEMENT AHEAD OF 2028
“There’s no reason not to support this other than pure politics,” he said, adding that his new organization plans to highlight states that have embraced the program while calling out those that have not.
In Pennsylvania, where debates over education tend to be as local as they are ideological, the question may land differently. Parents there are not talking about tax credits in abstract terms. They are talking about whether their child can get extra help in math, or whether a different school might be within reach.