Kentucky’s school choice constitutional amendment was defeated at the November ballot box, but the fight to bring more education options to Kentucky families will go on, and President-elect Donald Trump could be their biggest ally.

Amendment 2 would have clarified that Kentucky’s constitution does not prohibit the state from considering the same kinds of successful school choice programs that exist in 48 other states.

But convincing voters, especially in the face of a massive misinformation campaign conducted by the public school establishment, proved too difficult.

However, with the White House, Senate, and U.S. House of Representatives all under Republican control, there’s a solid chance to expand school choice to the entire country.

The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) recently passed out of a House committee.

The ECCA would provide a federal tax credit to encourage private donations by individuals and business to scholarship programs to help children from income-eligible families with a host of education expenses, including private school tuition.

ECCA scholarships could also be used for tutoring, special needs services, homeschooling curriculum materials, and educational technology, benefitting an array of students regardless of the type of school they attend.

While the U.S. Senate and White House were controlled by Democrats, the ECCA would likely have never passed. This is a shame because until quite recently school choice was a solidly bipartisan issue. But when teachers’ unions who oppose the competition encouraged by school choice programs became a leading source of Democrat campaign funds, only Republicans were left to defend education options for low-income families.

President-elect Trump has vowed to “establish the national goal of providing school choice to every American child living in poverty.” If majorities in the House and Senate agree, the ECCA will bring America a step closer to that vision.

Scholarship tax credit programs like ECCA already exist in 21 states, but this would be the first utilizing a credit on an individual or business’s federal taxes. Such programs are appealing because they use private, not public, dollars to fund scholarships, and the government already provides a host of other popular tax credits and deductions to encourage other forms of charitable giving or spending for the common good.

And with a federal program, states can’t stop students from participating. Which is how it should be.

As Colleen Hroncich and Neal McCluskey of the Cato Institute recently wrote, “Education choices should not be based on majority rule. It is simply wrong to compel families to pay for, and de facto attend, government schools – places intended to do nothing less than shape human minds – that they find subpar, or even morally unacceptable, even if the majority is OK with them.”

The federal government has long provided guidance and direction for policies to more fairly serve students when states have proven unable – or unwilling – to do so. Examples include the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA), which tied federal funding for schools to their supports for special needs children, and, of course, federally mandated desegregation of schools.

School choice is truly the civil rights issue of our time, and Congress and the new president should treat it accordingly.

— Gary Houchens, PhD, is professor of educational administrator and director of the Educational Leadership doctoral program at Western Kentucky University.