By Alice Linahan | 01.13.2025

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For instance, as highlighted in the article “How to Create Real Educational Choice for Texas Parents and Students,” these ESAs are presented as tools for parental empowerment. However, closer examination reveals that they often come with strings attached—state and federal regulations that dictate how funds can be used, what programs qualify, and how student outcomes are measured.

“Because most parents will not receive a large enough property tax credit to fully fund a Flex ESA, businesses will be allowed to set up nonprofit Flex ESA scholarship organizations funded by revenue redirected from their franchise or property tax payments. In case enough businesses do not do this, taxpayer money could be used. However, there must be strong safeguards in place, allowing no restrictions on the use of Flex ESAs for educational purposes and the funding should come from current education spending; it should not be new spending that would cut into the budget surplus as was the case in the 88th legislative session.”

It is the FRAMEWORK they must get in place.

This approach not only undermines genuine local control and parental choice but also serves as a gateway for aligning education systems with global standards and compliance frameworks. We must remain vigilant and question who truly benefits from these policies.

Let’s start by looking at the federal law the Every Student Succeeds Act passed in 2015 which was the reauthorization of the previously passed No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

Pay for Success – A Trojan Horse in ESSA

• The Pay for Success model, touted as an innovative funding mechanism, disguises the greed for federal compliance that underpins ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act).
• Pay for Success is not just about financial returns for investors or Social Impact Bonds; it’s about enforcing compliance with federal mandates at the local and state levels.

• Results for America highlights that the Pay for Success provisions in ESSA alone generate $2 billion annually. This is not about educational success; it’s about controlling the narrative and compliance in schools. Here is a news release from a well-connected organization bragging that just the Pay for Success components of ESSA add up to $2 billion a year. 

Federal Dollars Come with Strings Attached

• Local school districts, governments, and states are compelled to accept federal dollars under conditions that require them to implement the federal government’s vision for education.

• These requirements permeate all aspects of education—from reading, civics, and math to competency-based education models—forcing schools to comply with federally mandated standards and constructs.

• Instead of returning control to states and local schools, ESSA ensures that compliance with federal priorities remains central to accessing funds.

The Behavioral Science and Nudge Theory Influence

• ESSA provisions, particularly those tied to Results for America, are deeply connected to behavioral science initiatives such as Cass Sunstein’s “nudge” theories and the UK’s Behavioral Insights Unit.

• These initiatives focus on reshaping behavior, not just academic achievement, through compliance with federal mandates that emphasize social-emotional learning, workforce readiness, and civic conformity.

Competency-Based Education and the Role of Education Counsel

• Organizations like the Education Counsel, tied to influential political figures, designed the competency-based education model that ESSA enforces.

• Bethany Little, co-author of the “Moneyball for Education” report and partner at Education Counsel, plays a key role in promoting these federally mandated models. Education Counsel is tied to Clinton’s Ed Secretary Richard Riley. It was hired by the Common Core’s sponsor, CCSSO, to create the competency-based education successor for the Next Generation States pushing innovative practices.

• These models aim to reshape K-12 education to serve broader social and economic goals rather than individual student growth or academic excellence.

Title IV – The Heart of Federal Control

• ESSA’s Title IV requirements for 21st Century Schools clearly outline the compliance required in exchange for federal funds:

• Access to a well-rounded education: This often means implementing unproven, ideologically driven curricula aligned with global standards.

• Healthy and safe school environments: While sounding innocuous, this often ties to social-emotional learning mandates and intrusive data collection.

• Personalized learning supported by technology: This provision paves the way for data-driven education models that serve as tools for monitoring and controlling student behavior and performance.

Students as a Means to an End

• Students are being reduced to “human capital” in a system designed to meet federal compliance goals rather than foster genuine educational success.

• Schools and states agree to these terms because of the economic benefits tied to federal dollars, turning education into a marketplace rather than a public service.

The Bigger Picture – Social Reconstructionism

• The federal mandates embedded in ESSA align with the goals of Social Reconstructionists, who have long sought to use education to transform society.

• By tying funding to compliance, ESSA forces schools to adopt practices that emphasize social engineering over academic achievement, eroding the autonomy of local education systems.

Call to Action: Understanding the Cost of Federal Dollars

• It’s essential to expose how ESSA’s provisions, particularly Pay for Success, prioritize compliance over genuine local control.

• Parents, educators, and taxpayers must recognize the true cost of federal dollars whether they come from the Department of Education, Department of Labor, Department of Health and Human Services or the Department of Defense for education: the loss of state and local decision-making, the transformation of education into a data-driven compliance machine, and the marginalization of traditional academic excellence.

• The public must demand transparency and accountability for how ESSA and related programs affect children, schools, and communities.

Now let’s take it a step further. 

Connecting “Pay for Success” to Flexible Education Savings Accounts (ESA)

What is “Pay for Success”?

• The “Pay for Success” (PFS) model incentivizes private investors to fund social programs, including education, with returns tied to specific measurable outcomes (e.g., graduation rates, workforce readiness).
• Under ESSA, PFS provisions encourage data-driven approaches that tie funding to compliance with federal benchmarks, often through competency-based education (CBE) and social-emotional learning (SEL).

Flexible Education Savings Accounts (ESA): A Parallel Mechanism

• Education Savings Accounts (ESA) offer parents control over public funds allocated for their child’s education, allowing them to use these funds for private schooling, tutoring, online programs, or other educational services.

• While ESAs are marketed as tools for empowering parental choice, they also create a pathway for integrating PFS principles into individualized education funding.

The Data-Driven Link Between PFS and ESAs

• Both PFS and ESAs rely heavily on technology and data to track outcomes and justify expenditures.

• In PFS, private investors expect measurable outcomes to determine their returns; similarly, ESAs require accountability systems to ensure funds are spent “effectively,” creating opportunities for intrusive data collection and performance tracking of students.

• Personalized learning platforms funded through ESAs are often aligned with PFS frameworks, emphasizing digital tools and competency-based progress monitoring.

Public-Private Partnerships in ESAs and PFS

• PFS and ESAs both enable public-private partnerships, where private entities—including investors and tech companies—profit from education programs under the guise of innovation.

• ESAs open the door for private education service providers to partner with states, creating a market-driven approach to education funding that mirrors the PFS model’s investor-driven incentives.

Compliance in Exchange for Flexibility

• While ESAs promise flexibility for families, they often come with strings attached, requiring compliance with state-approved educational standards and data-sharing requirements.

• Similarly, PFS programs enforce compliance with federally mandated goals to ensure measurable outcomes, effectively aligning ESA-funded programs with broader PFS objectives.

Shifting the Purpose of Education

• PFS shifts education away from traditional academic goals toward workforce readiness, social-emotional learning, and behavioral outcomes, as these are easier to measure and monetize.

• ESAs risk embedding these same priorities by tying educational funding to state-approved “outcome-based” programs that prioritize compliance over genuine academic freedom.

Students as Human Capital in Both Models

• Both PFS and ESAs treat students as “human capital” to be developed for economic purposes, emphasizing skills development and data tracking over holistic education.

• The focus on measurable outcomes reduces students to metrics, aligning with the PFS model’s goal of creating a return on investment for education.

The Risk of Privatization and Loss of Local Control

• By integrating PFS principles into ESAs, education becomes further privatized and removed from local control.

• Federal guardrails embedded in ESSA and state ESA programs ensure that private education providers and investors are accountable to government-defined goals, not parents or communities.

• Over time, ESAs can serve as a mechanism to expand the PFS model, pushing more education funding into the hands of private actors while reducing transparency and accountability to taxpayers.

The Role of Technology Companies

• Technology companies benefit from both PFS and ESAs by providing digital platforms for personalized learning, data collection, and performance tracking.

• These companies stand to gain from the alignment of PFS outcomes with ESA-funded programs, further embedding technology in education at the expense of traditional teaching methods.

Call to Action: Protecting Parental Choice and Educational Freedom

• While ESAs appear to empower parents, they risk becoming a Trojan horse for PFS models that prioritize compliance, data collection, and private profit over genuine educational freedom.

• Policymakers, parents, and educators must demand transparency about how ESA funds are tied to state or federal benchmarks and how these programs align with PFS principles.

• Advocating for true local control and resisting the monetization of education are essential to preserving the integrity of parental choice and academic freedom.

By connecting “Pay for Success” with Education Savings Accounts, these talking points reveal the underlying alignment between these funding models and their shared reliance on compliance, data, and privatization.