Hi,
I’m a junior in high school, and like many students, I’ll soon be wrapping up my time in the public school system. Most people my age probably won’t think twice about it. They’ll graduate, move on, and try to forget the parts of our school system that didn’t work.
But I can’t forget. Because for most of my education, the system didn’t work for me.
I have ADHD and OCD, but I wasn’t diagnosed until I was sixteen. That means for over a decade—practically my entire K–12 experience—I went through school unable to focus, unable to keep up, and constantly falling behind. I wasn’t lazy, but it looked that way. I wasn’t unwilling, but I couldn’t show what I was capable of. But nobody noticed.
The truth is that our public education system is not working for millions of kids across the United States. In many schools, chronic absenteeism is rising, test scores are falling, and resources are stretched thin—not because of a lack of funding, but because of how the system is structured. In places like New York, we spend over $36,000 per student per year. But most families have no choice where that money goes.
That’s where school choice comes in.
School choice is the idea that families should have the option to use public education funding to send their kids to the school that works best for them— whether it’s public, private, charter, or something else. School Choice should not be partisan idea. If your assigned school isn’t serving your needs, you should be able to find one that does.
This week, I wrote about school choice in The Hill, where I covered Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill that would expand access to 529 education savings accounts. It’s a policy that gives families more flexibility to cover education costs—including tutoring, private school tuition, and special needs support.
The White House reposted the article. And of course, I was proud of that. But what really mattered to me wasn’t the post. It was the fact that Washington is finally paying attention to an issue that affects every American student.
If I had access to school choice earlier, I believe my life would have looked very different. Maybe I would have been diagnosed sooner. Maybe I would have had a learning environment better suited to my needs.
I’m not alone. Thousands of students with learning disabilities, or who simply don’t thrive in their assigned public schools, could benefit from policies that give families more options.
This doesn’t mean every public school is bad—many do a great job. But families should have the right to choose what works best for them. That’s all school choice really means.
I’ve been writing and speaking about this issue since I began writing, and I plan to continue. I care about school choice not as a political talking point, but because I’ve lived through the gaps in our system.
If you’ve talked about education on your podcast, in your community, or in your work, and would ever want to connect, I’d love to hear from you. I want to help raise awareness, share my experience, and be part of the national conversation about what it means to fix our education system for the next generation.
Thanks for reading—and thank you for being part of the reason I keep writing.
Warmly,
Gregory Lyakhov
