This Election Year, School Choice Is a Partisan Issue

Even though the presidential candidates haven't discussed it much, school choice is an election year issue in many parts of the nation.

In Nebraska, voters will decide whether to repeal a 2023 law that funds private school tuition with taxpayer dollars, which has cost about $10 million. Referendum 435 notes the arguments for and against the current law.

The opposition stance reads, "Repealing the program would eliminate record investments in Nebraska schools and block education freedom reforms that empower parents and hold schools accountable."

The group did not reply to The Epoch Times' requests for comment.

The Kentucky proposition to codify school choice follows years of opposition from Gov. Andy Beshear.

"This measure is a handout to wealthy donors," Beshear said. "They would receive tax benefits even larger than charitable donation deductions and could even profit by transferring securities to the private educational institutions to avoid capital gains taxes."

Two competing organizations are jockeying for money and votes on their sides of the Kentucky school choice divide ahead of Election Day.

This situation is unique in that Colorado is a blue state, although Republicans increasingly lead the push for school choice.

Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center and a professor of education policy at the University of Colorado–Boulder, said there are several reasons that school choice is more popular with Republicans.

The first is that the GOP is more inclined to look at private markets and often views public schools as "socialist or worse."

There is an increasing rift between Republicans and public school teachers unions that support Democrat candidates and policies.

The two sides also disagree over regulations governing religion in schools and legal protections for students.

"My strong hunch is that if the United States were comparably regulated [to Canada and Western European nations that offer public subsidies for private schools], they would get quite a bit more buy-in from Democrats," Welner told The Epoch Times via email.

Patrick Wolf, chairman of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, said school choice was a bipartisan issue when it emerged in the early 1990s.

Fiscal conservatives and progressive Democrats sought alternatives to failing public schools in Cleveland, Milwaukee, Washington, and other major cities.

The issue became more polarized when federal and state leaders supported public charter schools but not private school vouchers.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic brought remote learning. Parents were dissatisfied with what they witnessed in the online Zoom lessons, and the slow response to returning to more effective in-person learning in many states only increased scrutiny and dissatisfaction with neighborhood schools.

"Student achievement was already dropping in K–12 pre-pandemic," Wolf told The Epoch Times.

"Parents saw that their kids weren't engaged, and they felt their neighborhood schools were not very responsive to their needs or their children's needs. They felt education wasn't being delivered effectively."

Wolf said referendums "historically have not been kind to school choice" because voters don't fully grasp what they are deciding on.

Still, he said he believes that public opinion across the United States favors school choice.

Most children spend some time in public schools, whether they start in elementary school and select a private institution in high school or vice versa.

Even more, children remain in public schools from kindergarten through graduation, and the number of students who never attended public schools is far lower, Wolf said, adding that he doesn't think there will be a massive exodus to private education because of school choice measures.

Only two states had results below 50 percent in both categories—Maine (41 percent very satisfied and 47 percent indicating they have a choice) and New Hampshire (35 percent very satisfied and 47 percent indicating they have a choice).

Nevada had the lowest percentage of very satisfied parents, at 31 percent, while 53 percent of the respondents in that state said they have school choice.

It also said that 569,000 K–12 students received public subsidies for private school education in the 2023–2024 academic year at a cost of more than $4 billion and that 40 percent of the nation's 50 million elementary school students are eligible for public subsidies that fund private school education.

Charter schools, which have separate district oversight from public schools in their communities but are still subject to state regulations, have enjoyed more bipartisan support than private school subsidies, education savings accounts, and state-funded scholarship programs.

"But opponents like to label it all as vouchers," DeGrow told The Epoch Times.

He said he thinks that in the years to come, folks on both sides of this issue will dispute the actual taxpayer costs of private school subsidies, whether school choice fosters better academic performance, and whether the quality of education improves when schools compete for students and funding.

But the main argument, DeGrow said, is who should be considered the beneficiaries of education: the students or the communities.

In many states, schools are funded by local property taxes and state aid through income or sales tax.

A parent who sends his or her child to private school still must pay the municipal property taxes that fund local schools, but that local district simultaneously loses state aid based on enrollment.

"I think most people strongly agree that the money should follow the students," DeGrow said.