Children’s Education

Military families place a high value on the quality of their children’s education, and this in turn affects many important family decisions. The perceived quality of local schools can determine which duty station a service member volunteers for, whether the family accompanies the service member or stays behind, and where a family chooses to live in their new community. School quality will impact whether a family chooses to spend their financial resources on private schools or considers homeschooling options. It can even influence a family’s decision to remain in the service. Military families want quality education for their children just as their civilian counterparts do. It is important to remember that military families must include an extra element when they define “quality of education.” For military families, it is not enough for children to be doing well in their current schools; they must also be prepared to do well in their next location. Most military children will move at least twice during their high school years and will attend six to nine different schools between kindergarten and 12th grade. Though many of our civilian schools are already doing an excellent job of educating and supporting our military children, we believe military children deserve a quality education wherever they may live.

Our Association supports:

  • Quality education for all military-connected children
  • Continuation of Department of Defense grants to repair or replace school buildings where large numbers of military children are enrolled
  • Passage of the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children in all 50 states, territories, and the District of Columbia
  • State implementation of the Compact at the local level
  • Full funding of Department of Education Impact Aid at authorized levels
  • Allowing school districts experiencing high growth due to base realignments to apply for Impact Aid funds using current student enrollment numbers
  • Increasing the DoD supplement to Impact Aid
  • Extending the authority for the DoDEA Educational Partnership Grant Program
  • State adoption of Common Core Standards
  • Improved data collection of military-connected students

Updates