Election Results Set Stage For Further Expansion Of School Choice
There is much for both political parties to learn from the results of the 2024 election. The take-aways being gleaned involve political lessons, as well as many that pertain to policy. Such post-election analysis, however, often misses the mark. Take the November 6 Governing Magazine , which reported that school choice "fared poorly" in the 2024 elections. Many would beg to differ with that conclusion, starting with Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) and millions of voters across the nation's second most populous state.
Opponents of school choice are pointing to Kentucky voters' decision to reject Amendment 2 , a ballot measure that would've allowed tax dollars to go to non-government schools, as evidence of public skepticism about programs that expand school choice. There were many other results in the 2024 election, however, that contradict such claims. In fact, some outcomes from the 2024 election indicate that not only is demand for school choice high, the political salience of the issue is as potent as ever.
Texas is now one of the few red states that does not offer families any meaningful school choice program, but Governor Greg Abbott has made changing that his top priority. After Abbott's proposal to create an education savings account (ESA) program in Texas failed to pass during the 2023 legislative session (it was approved by the Texas Senate but failed to get through the House), the Governor took action to change the composition of the Texas House of Representatives in 2024 so that his ESA program can be enacted in 2025.
Heading into the 2024 election cycle, Governor Abbott and other school choice supporters knew they needed to pick up 13 seats in the Texas House in order to have the votes to pass an ESA bill next year. Six Texas House incumbents who opposed ESAs lost in the March primary, and then three anti-choice GOP incumbents went on to lose in the May runoff elections. Meanwhile, five retiring Texas House Republicans who opposed Governor Abbott's ESA bill will be replaced by pro-ESA Republicans next year. Thanks to results in the spring primaries, subsequent runoffs, and then the general election, 14 Texas House Republicans who blocked Abbott's ESA bill last year will be replaced by freshman lawmakers who campaigned on their support for school choice.
Texas is not the only place where 2024 state legislative contest results make expansion of school choice more likely in 2025. In South Carolina, for example, Republicans grew their majorities in the state legislature, picking up four seats in the state Senate to win a supermajority in that chamber, something they already had in the House. Thanks to these GOP gains, South Carolina Republicans likely have the votes to pass an even broader school choice bill than the ESA legislation they approved in 2023, which was struck down by the South Carolina Supreme Court in September. What's more, given changes on the South Carolina Supreme Court in recent months, a broader, even universal ESA bill is likely to withstand legal challenge should the legislature enact one next year.
The last several years have witnessed a major expansion of school choice in the U.S. thanks to the enactment of reforms in more than a dozen states that create new school choice programs or broaden existing ones. Whereas Governor Greg Abbott is working to enact a new ESA program in Texas, his counterpart in Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee (R), aims to make the Volunteer State's existing ESA program, currently available in three counties, statewide in 2025.
As New School Choice Programs Are Debated, The Oldest Still Come Under AttackThere is no denying the fact that there has been a historic expansion of school choice in recent years and that polling shows bipartisan, cross-ideological support for programs that provide families with more education options. A poll conducted by Texas Southern University and University of Houston this summer found 69% support ESAs, with even higher rates of support among black (73% support) and Latino (72% support) residents.
Despite such favorable polling, proposals to create new school choice programs or expand existing ones remain the subject of criticism and vehement opposition from some corners, particularly from teachers unions. Consider the recent attacks on Wisconsin's education voucher program, the nation's oldest.
Wisconsin's voucher program provides families with an average of $10,443 annually in order to pay for private school tuition. Opponents of this program regularly complain that it lacks sufficient oversight and accountability.
"Ending these unaccountable programs puts us on a path to fairness all of our kids deserve," Heather DuBois Bourenane, executive director of the Wisconsin Public Education Network, said about education vouchers Wisconsin. Kyle Koenen, policy director at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), responds to such criticism by pointing out that "ultimate accountability for school choice programs lies with the parents," adding that if "a choice school isn't meeting needs, parents can move their child to another school."
Far from being unregulated, Wisconsin's choice schools face a number of regulations and strict standards. Dr. Will Flanders, research director at WILL, co-authored a report detailing the wide array of regulations that choice schools in Wisconsin must follow, including state testing requirements, teacher certification standards, and financial accountability measures. In fact, some argue that the regulatory burden facing choice schools in Wisconsin is so great it has discouraged some schools from participating.
"When we look at the broader landscape of school performance, the evidence overwhelmingly favors school choice, particularly in Wisconsin," says Koenen. "The non-partisan Wisconsin Policy Forum, for instance, recently released a study that showed choice and charter schools in Wisconsin perform better on state tests than traditional public schools."
In addition to research from his organization, which found programs that expand school choice are beneficial to children and parents, Koenen also points to similar findings by the University of Arkansas' School Choice Demonstration Project , whose research also attempts to control for demographic differences. Koenen says one of the most fundamental misconceptions voiced by opponents of school choice is the notion that school choice programs result in reduced funding for government-run schools.
In Wisconsin, after adjusting for inflation, the state government is now spending more per pupil than was the case in 2000, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. The only time public school funding in Wisconsin experienced a decline in recent decades was in the immediate aftermath of the enactment of 2011's Act 10, which presented local officials with new cost-saving tools. The argument that Wisconsin's school voucher program diminishes funding for government-run schools, however, is verifiably false.
New legislation to expand existing school choice programs and create new ones will begin to be debated in Austin, Columbia, Nashville, and other state capitals starting in January. Even though their arguments have not been able to hold back a historic expansion of school choice in recent years, expect teachers union lobbyists and their legislative allies to continue claiming that schools accepting voucher and ESA recipients are unaccountable, or that they take money away from government-run schools.
