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REPUBLICANS’ BIG IDEA FOR REMAKING PUBLIC EDUCATION HITS VOTER
RESISTANCE  
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Juan Perez Jr.
November 27, 2024
Politico
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_ An aggressive Republican campaign to pump hundreds of millions of
taxpayer dollars into private education is continuing across the
country, even after voters in three states rejected the idea. _

, Illustration by Claudine Hellmuth/POLITICO

 

An aggressive Republican campaign to pump hundreds of millions of
taxpayer dollars into private education is continuing across the
country, even after voters in three states rejected the idea.

Texas lawmakers are poised to debate a universal school voucher
program next year, following Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s
scorched-earth campaign to oust GOP lawmakers who thwarted his top
priority. Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee and state legislative
leaders have already reintroduced a school choice bill
[[link removed]] to provide
thousands of students private education scholarships after a similar
bill floundered last year amid resistance from rural lawmakers.

And North Carolina Republicans this month used the waning days of
their legislative supermajority in the state House to override
departing Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto
[[link removed]] of a bill that will inject
upwards of half a billion dollars in new annual spending
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private school scholarship program that has tens of thousands of
students waiting to participate.

“It came in over budget because so many families decided to avail
themselves of this,” Tim Moore, North Carolina’s House speaker
and a representative-elect
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said of the state’s growing initiative. “That says a lot right
there about the popularity of the program.”

[Tim Moore speaks to the press in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.]

“It came in over budget because so many families decided to avail
themselves of this,” Tim Moore, North Carolina’s House speaker and
a representative-elect, said of the state’s growing initiative. |
Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty

It’s a clash between legislative will, labor groups, and voter
discontent over a policy trend that’s already swept through much of
the country. Teacher union leaders are scrambling to beat back new
school choice bills in state legislatures — measures they believe
decimate funding for public schools. They’re also organizing
resistance to federal private school tax credit legislation endorsed
by President-elect Donald Trump that has a path to approval in a
Republican-controlled Congress.

Unions hope they can copy a playbook that marshaled voters on Nov. 5
to reject a measure that would have enshrined a constitutional right
to school choice in Colorado, deny a bid to authorize public funding
for private education in Kentucky, and repeal a key portion of a
Nebraska school voucher law.

“We had a lot of learning from very different states that we know we
can apply in the fights that lay ahead,” National Education
Association President Becky Pringle said. “You can believe that we
will remind those elected leaders, ‘This is what the voters said.
Ignore it at your peril.”

The election results in Kentucky highlight voter discord over the
issue. Roughly two-thirds of the state’s voters
[[link removed]] backed Trump, but nearly
the same proportion rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment
that would allow lawmakers to fund private schools with public funds.

That lopsided defeat for private school choice held throughout
Kentucky’s seven biggest counties
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of which backed Trump) and its most rural areas. In rural Clay County,
for example, approximately 9 in 10 voters backed Trump — while 66
percent opposed [[link removed]] the
private school measure.

“What’s struck me is how much the choice community has really
minimized this,” said Frederick Hess, education director at the
conservative American Enterprise Institute. “When Trump is winning
Kentucky by plus 30 or 35, and half of those voters are voting down
the choice referendums, I think you’ve got to ask yourself what’s
going on.”

Policies that use taxpayer money to subsidize families’ private
tuition, homeschooling expenses, and other education-related costs
have proliferated throughout the country in recent years.

More than 30 states have enacted some kind of school choice program,
including at least thirteen that had so-called education savings
account programs on their books by the middle of this year, according
to a National Conference of State Legislatures
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of one popular program type. Arizona set a new standard
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its program in 2022 by making it available to any family in the state,
regardless of their income — which has resulted in nearly one in 20
students participating.

But there’s still room for growth — and Texas is poised to be the
biggest battleground.

[Greg Abbott speaks on stage.]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says he now has 79 votes in the state House to
support a voucher bill, three beyond what’s required to approve
legislation in that chamber. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The American Federation for Children, a school choice organization
founded by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos that spends heavily
in state legislative races
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said it spent more than $8 million in the Texas primary and general
elections to cement a voucher-friendly state House majority to support
what could eventually become the nation’s largest statewide school
choice program.

Abbott, the Texas governor, says he now has 79 votes in the state
House to support a voucher bill, three beyond what’s required to
approve legislation in that chamber.

“I made sure that we would elect Republicans to the Texas House of
Representatives in sufficient numbers to be able to pass a school
choice plan just like the Texas Senate has passed many times,”
Abbott declared during a post-election news conference
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a Christian private school where he boasted a “tidal wave of
support” for his endorsed House candidates.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who serves as president of the Texas
Senate, called on Abbott
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prioritize school choice legislation as an emergency item next year, a
move that would allow lawmakers to approve such a bill within the
first 60 days of the state’s forthcoming legislative session.

Unions are vowing to resist the Texas proposal.

“We’ll be using every tool that we have available to us,”
including legal challenges, to resist the Texas effort, Pringle told
reporters earlier this month. “We fought this battle in Texas
before, and we will continue to fight it.

Tennessee’s governor and Republican lawmakers will revisit a
statewide voucher proposal that failed earlier this year
[[link removed]].

This time, bicameral bills
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up to 20,000 public-funded private school tuition scholarships include
potential sweeteners to coax potential holdouts, such as $2,000 public
school teacher bonuses and tax tweaks to support public school
construction projects.

The NEA also expects North Dakota lawmakers to debate their own law,
more than one year after Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, who has since
been nominated by Trump to be interior secretary, vetoed a private
school tuition subsidy bill
[[link removed]].

There’s little evidence that the referendum defeats are causing
Republicans to reconsider their support for expanding voucher
programs.

“It’s important not to over interpret the referendum results,”
said Michael Petrilli, president of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham
Institute. “The teacher unions are a very effective political
machine and it’s not hard when you’re voting over these things in
direct democracy to demagogue the issue.”

But Petrilli, a school choice proponent who opposes subsidizing
wealthy households through broad voucher programs, said lawmakers
could be overestimating their political support when such initiatives
don’t have much to offer suburban or rural-dwelling households that
might be happy with their local schools or have no other option.

“The kiss of death in these debates is to play into the mindset that
this is somehow about hurting public education,” he said. “There
could be a real backlash here … You’re going to piss a lot of
people off by writing big checks to wealthy families.”

And despite anti-voucher energy at the polls, conservative lawmakers
still have an advantage in states like North Carolina where voters
can’t channel their views through ballot box referendums.

“Folks go and they vote for their legislators, and the legislators
enact policies,” Moore said of North Carolina’s system. “And I
would say educational access was a key component of a lot of
campaigns, and with that being a key message, Republicans maintained
very comfortable majorities.”

_Juan Perez Jr. is an education reporter for POLITICO Pro._

 

 

 

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