To our knowledge, not a single state, school district, or individual school has banned students from wearing masks in the classroom.

Yet, the ever-politicized Office for Civil Rights within the U.S. Department of Education has decided to use the heft of the federal government to investigate states that don’t mandate children to wear masks.

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The Office for Civil Rights tries to disguise the word “mandate” by using the term “universal masking” throughout its press release announcing the investigation of five states that have banned mask mandates.

Again, no state has banned “universal” masking; several have prohibited mask mandates….

The office’s argument is that if schools don’t mandate every child to wear a mask, that could have a disproportionate impact on students with special needs, and…violate their federally protected access to Free Appropriate Public Education…

Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends children over the age of 2 wear masks while indoors. Yet, as Heritage Foundation senior fellow Doug Badger recently noted, “The leading study on which the CDC bases this recommendation found that the COVID-19 infection rate in schools requiring students to wear masks ‘was not statistically significant compared with schools where mask use was optional.’”…

Seven states—Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah—have banned mask mandates. The Office for Civil Rights is currently investigating five of them: Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah….

But President Joe Biden’s Department of Education seeks to turn…legal requirements on their head by focusing instead on a modification of group behavior and taking the emphasis off the individual student with a disability altogether…

Choice—not federal mandates and investigations—is the answer, something several states have already recognized within the COVID-19 context.

Amid ongoing debates around coronavirus-related mandates, Florida is providing families access to the Hope Scholarship school voucher program if they find their child’s public school mask requirements to be too lax or too rigid.

Arizona recently followed suit…Lawmakers in Tennessee are considering similar options…

As the American Federation for Children’s Corey DeAngelis explained in The Wall Street Journal, “Democrats favored this school-choice proposal more than Republicans, with support at 82% and 78%, respectively. …

Education choice is an answer to the ongoing debates around school closures and coronavirus-related mandates. And as the 2021-22 school year begins, more children than ever have access to school choice options…

…[S]tate leaders should enable parents to take their money elsewhere if their child’s school doesn’t reopen to in-person instruction, or if they disagree with masking or COVID-19 vaccination policies at their child’s school, finding those policies either too rigid or too lax.

Do you favor the opportunity to have more school choice? Share in the comments below!

(Excerpt from The Daily Signal. Article by Lindsey Burke. Photo Credit: Izzy Park/Unsplash).