K–12 Education Freedom Movement Must Keep the Pedal to the Metal

Students walk to their classrooms at a middle school in Los Angeles on Sept.10, 2021. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

Commentary

Expanding education freedom for elementary and secondary school children continues apace across the United States, and now Congress is climbing aboard. There are 33 states that offer kindergarten through grade 12 school options for families beyond the assigned public school, including 11 states with near “universal” choice.

This encouraging trend in expanding education freedom bodes well for all education stakeholders, the most important of whom are schoolchildren. Studies continue to show that school choice offers a range of benefits for this cohort.

Yet this is no time to declare victory or rest on one’s laurels in the effort to expand freedom and choice in K–12 education. There are millions more children to reach, 46 percent of whom reside in states with no school choice laws on the books, and the opponents of education reform will not stand down.

In this current 2024 school year, an estimated 982,000 students in grades K–12 are supported to some extent by government to access private school options, nearly twice the enrollment four years ago when the pandemic hit. This momentum will continue as the 11 states phase in universal eligibility for education savings accounts or tuition tax credits for families to pay private school tuition and still more states create new or expand existing school choice programs.

So far in 2024, Alabama has become the 11th state to enact universal choice in K–12 education, Wyoming has enacted its first private school choice law, and Georgia has expanded education savings accounts for children in low-performing schools. Missouri is the latest to expand its current school choice program, and other states also are poised to do likewise.

Congress, too, is stepping up to the plate on school choice. Reps. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.) and Burgess Owens (R-Utah) have proposed the Educational Choice for Children Act, which would provide federal tax credits to encourage individuals and businesses to donate to nonprofit scholarship granting organizations (“SGOs”) for children to use in elementary and secondary schools. The Education Department would have no role, nor would public funding be used. Identical legislation is proposed in the Senate.

These SGOs could not only provide scholarships for private school tuition, but also fund textbooks, online curriculum, special needs services, and home school expenses, akin to a “529” plan used for higher education.

What these lawmakers in Washington and in state capitals are ultimately responding to are a growing number of parents who want a better education for their children, who grow up quickly. One of the standout lawmakers, Louisiana Democratic state Rep. Jason Hughes, summed up his support for school choice this way: “Our children continue to live in poverty, trapped in failing schools. ... I came here to make tough decisions. And I came here to put children first.”

School choice, more than perhaps any other issue, has robust support among a wide cross-section of voters. Last summer, RealClear Opinion Research polled 1,000 registered voters and found that school choice was supported by a margin of 71 percent to 13 percent, with Democrats (66 percent), Republicans (80 percent), and independents (69 percent) strongly in favor, along with black (73 percent), Latino (71 percent), and Asian voters (70 percent).

In December 2023, RealClear found that 76 percent of voters are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports school choice, including substantial majorities of Democrats (77 percent), Republicans (86 percent), independents (67 percent), black voters (80 percent), Latino voters (76 percent), and Asian voters (73 percent).

Still, like the sun rising in the morning, the public school cottage industry of adults continues to proffer the same shopworn, false arguments against education freedom for children from nonwealthy households.

In reality, the overwhelming number of studies on school choice programs, both recent and going back decades, confirm that their effects are overwhelmingly positive regarding academic improvement—including for students who remain in the district public schools—taxpayer savings, integration, school safety, and parent satisfaction.

The real beef from school choice opponents comes back to money, not children. It’s always about the money, which the public school establishment believes is theirs alone (and never enough), rather than having it follow children to schools of their parents’ choice.

Even so, a study by EdChoice from late 2021 documented, “The states with robust educational choice programs may have had smaller-than-average increases in inflation-adjusted spending [for public schools] since 2002, but the per-pupil spending still went up, not down.”

Lawmakers in Congress and throughout the country should keep the school choice pedal to the metal. As K–12 education freedom expands in state after state, thousands more low-income to middle-class parents are becoming financially empowered to educate their children in the schools where they want them. It logically follows that education funding will increasingly reflect where children attend school.

The public school establishment will go on opposing, but competition from school choice has benefited children in public schools, too, and will continue to do so.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.