School-choice campaigns heading into so-far unfriendly states

Private school choice advocates expect that 2025 will be the year that they finally bring the last big red state, Texas, into the fold. The likely victory would, in turn, pose the next big challenge for the controversial movement: Can it win in enemy territory – that is, blue states – too?

Inspired by free-market ideology and Christian faith, advocates aim to give families more educational choices by providing them with public funds that they mostly use for private instruction at religious schools. Although the movement now has a foothold in almost all red states, to become an influential force in education, it needs to make deeper inroads into densely populated blue states, where Democrats, teachers’ unions, and rural Republicans have built a formidable wall of opposition to protect public schools.

“Once we finish with the low-hanging fruit, Texas and a few other red states, this movement will go to a blue state strategy,” said Robert Enlow, CEO of the national advocacy group EdChoice. “It has to figure something out. Let’s be honest.”

The political battles over school choice have been fierce, with critics such as American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten claiming that programs will “defund public schools.” In Nebraska, where voters killed a new program in November, an attack ad from choice opponents depicted supporters dressed in suits storming into a public school classroom and intimidating children, drawing protests from state senators who called it ridiculous and insulting.

Despite the warnings from opponents, most choice programs launched in the last three decades have been too small to significantly threaten enrollment-based school funding.

They have been restricted mainly to lower-income parents who may be dissatisfied with lax discipline and lackluster instruction – problems exacerbated by the pandemic – at their public schools. All told, private choice programs enroll only about 2% of all K-12 students.

The stakes are getting higher, however, as the movement – national advocacy groups, wealthy donors, and grassroots Christian activists – wins legislative battles for “universal” programs designed to expand enrollment. In universal programs now in 12 red states, all families, rich and poor, are typically eligible for public funds, even for children already in private school.

Patrick Wolf, a prominent school choice researcher at the University of Arkansas, says universal programs are a smart strategy for the movement. Advocates hope they will improve upon the earlier programs for disadvantaged kids that produced mixed academic results and failed to build much political momentum even in some red states like Kentucky.

Under universal eligibility, families that struggle financially to keep their kids in private school are joining the programs for tuition relief. And wealthier families that participate have added social and political capital to the movement, giving it stronger legs.

“Strategically the advantage is clear,” Wolf said. “Universal eligibility creates a bigger tent of beneficiaries. That’s good for the programs and everyone in them.”

But universal programs are even more contentious with Democratic lawmakers because of the costs to pay for private education, essentially creating a second publicly funded school system. While the early restricted programs actually save money – since the cost of a choice scholarship is typically much less than a public-school education – universal programs create a new taxpayer expense: the funding of students already in private schools.

“School choice would subsidize some of the wealthiest families in my state who already send their kids to private schools,” Democratic Sen. Jeff Yarbro told RealClearInvestigations in explaining his opposition to a universal bill in his state of Tennessee. “It’s bad economics because we are not changing activity or improving outcomes. We are just pushing dollars from one group of people to another.”

In Arizona, the first state to adopt a universal program in 2022, the costs have ballooned. Almost half of the 80,000 students getting funding were already in private school, driving up the price tag of the program to $800 million last year, according to the Department of Education. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs wants to rein in the program that contributed to the state’s $1.3 billion budget deficit last year, forcing big cutbacks in funding water infrastructure projects to cope with droughts.

“It’s just not possible for these states to fund two separate educational systems, the public and the private,” said Professor Josh Cowen, whose new book, “The Privateers,” is critical of school choice programs. “The scholarships are an interest group subsidy that states have to make hard choices to pay for.”

Hardball Politics in Texas

In Texas, the cost of a universal program, a top priority of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, prompted a revolt among rural Republican lawmakers. The $500 million proposed program would escalate over time, they feared, forcing cutbacks in funding for public schools that also serve as community centers and major employers in rural areas.

To win over rural Republicans, the bill contained a large $7 billion increase in public school funding on top of an approved $6 billion boost earlier in 2023. Texas school districts stood to gain far more money than they might lose in per-pupil funding when students left for private schools, says Mandy Drogin, who focuses on school choice at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

But rural Republican lawmakers turned down the $7 billion sweetener by voting to kill the universal program, spurring an unbending Abbott to play hardball, targeting his own party members for defeat in March primaries. To fund these efforts, Abbott received a $6 million donation from school choice advocate and billionaire donor Jeff Yass, an example of the big money behind the movement.

Eleven of the challengers Abbott endorsed and funded won in the primaries on a school choice platform and then sailed to victory in November, providing the votes for a universal program this year.

One of the newly elected legislators is Hillary Hickland, a stay-at-home mom and conservative Christian activist who, like several other challengers, had never run for public office. The victory of Hickland and the other 10 Republican candidates supported by Abbott underscored the potency of school choice in a state where a recent poll shows 69% of voters support it.

“A grassroots movement based on issues affecting families propelled several of us who are first-timers to victory,” Hickland told RCI. “We have the votes in the House to pass it and the overwhelming support of Texans who have been working to advance school choice for over three decades.”

Shapiro’s ‘Unfinished Business’

Advocates say the stars are aligned to turn Pennsylvania into a blue state win. It already has a limited tax credit program to incentivize private donations for choice scholarships. What’s more, Gov. Josh Shapiro is one of the few Democratic state leaders who supports school choice, as do Pennsylvania voters by a wide margin.

The issue came to a head in 2023 when a Shapiro-backed non-universal voucher proposal targeting students in low-performing schools was met with stiff opposition from House Democrats and the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union. Shapiro was forced to line-item veto the voucher proposal to get the budget approved, calling school choice “unfinished business.”

In November, Pennsylvania swung to the right by backing President-elect Donald Trump and sending Republican challenger Dave McCormick to the U.S. Senate. The cheers of school choice advocates were muted because Democrats held on to a one-seat majority in the state House.

The fate of another voucher bill expected in 2025 may depend on whether a few Democrats are willing to break with House leadership and risk political payback, according to a veteran of the Pennsylvania battles. Leaders reportedly threatened to take away committee assignments and staff from Democrat Amen Brown, a black representative who crossed the aisle to back the voucher bill.

“Governor Shapiro has a chance to deliver on his promise to expand educational opportunity for underserved children,” said Tommy Schultz, CEO of the advocacy group American Federation for Children. “It will require bold leadership to bring House leadership to the table and get it done.”

EdChoice policy director Ed Tarnowski also sees Virginia as fertile blue state ground after a decade of defeated choice bills, including one in 2023, at the hands of Democrats. Since taking office in 2022, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin has been shaking up public education, introducing a system of accountability and higher academic standards last year while also pushing school choice.

Still, advocates will need the support of Democrats who control the General Assembly to create a state-funded program. Grassroots activists with the Virginia Education Opportunity Alliance are using a bottom-up strategy, educating low-income families throughout the state about school choice and encouraging them to pressure lawmakers into backing the program. It’s the type of campaign that led to the approval of vouchers in Washington, D.C., says Craig DiSesa, executive director of the alliance. “We plan to replicate that model.”

Illinois Backpedals

Illinois shows how fragile school choice laws can be in blue states. Myles Mendoza, a liberal Democrat and former social worker, spearheaded a campaign for a program in Illinois after seeing the personal harm that failing Chicago Public Schools inflicted on students.

As president of Empower Illinois, he built a coalition of Republicans, moderate Democrats, and trade unions to pass a $100 million tax credit scholarship program for disadvantaged kids in 2017. It was part of a deal that also boosted funding for high-poverty public schools.

The program was a hit, with three times more demand than supply of about 10,000 scholarships, many of them awarded to kids in Catholic schools. But the election of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, beating Republican Bruce Rauner with the help of an endorsement by the Illinois Federation of Teachers, shattered the bipartisan coalition behind the program. Pritzker let it sunset in 2023.

For school choice to get a permanent foothold in blue states like Illinois, Mendoza says, advocates need to rally more blue-collar, Latino, and Jewish families that are troubled by public schools. “These groups could pressure Democrats to support private school choice over time,” Mendoza said. “But currently there are no votes in Illinois to pass school choice.”

Professor Wolf also sees external pressures forcing blue states like Illinois to get with the program. With school choice now in a majority of states, he says, Illinois will come under pressure to adopt it or risk losing residents to four of its neighbors with choice programs. Such peer pressure explains why public charter schools are now in 46 states.

“Illinois is losing population, so Democratic legislators might consider that they could hold on to more of their families if they return to offering at least the low-income ones support for private school enrollment,” Wolf said.

No Choice of Good Private Schools

Politics isn’t the only drag on the movement’s ambitions. Another is academic. Many higher quality private schools don’t accept school-choice students because of the state rules, such as reporting test scores, that come with participation in the programs.

Catholic schools have enrolled most students in many of the programs, with other religiously affiliated schools taking students, too, according to researchers. A study of Washington D.C., Louisiana, and Indiana found that private schools that are smaller, less expensive, and more diverse – features associated with a less rigorous education – are more likely to participate in programs. An examination of the Milwaukee program underscored the instability of participating schools, particularly startups: 41% of all the schools failed over a 25-year period.

It’s not surprising, then, that school-choice students are not typically posting stellar academic gains. Wolf says rigorous studies of the early small programs showed some positive academic results on standardized tests, while more recent examinations of bigger programs revealed some negative outcomes. Researchers did find more consistently positive effects for students with graduation rates and college entrance and completion. Wolf calls the results “mixed.”

Professor Cowen, who was optimistic about the programs early on, is now a critic. He says the negative academic results from the larger programs are significant, on par with the learning loss students recently suffered during the pandemic.

“Twenty years ago, there were only a small number of private schools participating in programs and they were pretty decent,” said Cowen. “But many more schools are involved now, some of them located in church basements, and many of them are not interested in academic outcomes. That’s not their main mission.”

Advocates are putting their faith in the expansion of universal programs across the country to raise the academic bar. As more children from wealthier families get scholarships, the theory goes, it will encourage higher-quality private schools to participate in the programs, lifting the performance of all students, including low-income kids.

Will Congress Act?

Facing uphill battles in blue states, the movement has a Plan B. With Republicans taking control of Congress this year, John Schilling at Invest in Education says advocates are cautiously optimistic about the chances of a federal tax credit bill to privately fund school choice scholarships for students nationwide. Such an approach would provide a wedge into blue states where groups would collect donations to start scholarship programs that otherwise might not get off the ground.

“We see this law as creating opportunity in blue states where there is entrenched opposition to school choice,” said Schilling. “The only way states like New York, California, Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts can get school choice now is through a federal tax credit.”

The Educational Choice for Children Act, which has 180 Republican co-sponsors, is hardly a sure bet. Democrats are solidly opposed to it, and many rural Republicans don’t like it either. The bill probably won’t get the 60 votes needed in the Senate to avoid a filibuster, which means Republicans may try to push it through budget reconciliation, a difficult undertaking but one that requires only a majority to pass a bill.

Cowen at Michigan State University sees hypocrisy in the movement’s turn to Washington. Republicans are banking on federal legislation while also calling for a reduction in Washington’s influence on education and even the dismantling of the Department of Education. But the chance to open up blue states to school choice is apparently too good an opportunity to pass up.