Both political parties have a lot to learn from the results of the 2024 election. The gathered results carry political lessons as well as many that pertain to politics. Such post-election analysis, however, often misses the mark. Take November 6th The governing magazine articlewhich reported that school choice has “gone wrong” in the 2024 election. Many would beg to agree with that conclusion, starting with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and millions of voters in the nation’s second-most populous state.

Opponents of school choice point to Kentucky voters’ decision to reject it Amendment 2a ballot measure that would have allowed tax dollars to go to non-government schools, as evidence of public skepticism about programs that expand school choice. There were, however, many other results in the 2024 election that contradict such claims. In fact, some results from the 2024 election indicate that not only is the demand for school choice high, but the political salience of the issue is as strong as ever.

Texas is now one of the few red states that doesn’t offer families any meaningful school choice programs, but Gov. Greg Abbott has made change his top priority. After Abbott’s proposal to create an Education Savings Account (ESA) program in Texas failed during the 2023 legislative session (it passed the Texas Senate but failed to pass the House), the governor took measures to change the makeup of the Texas House of Representatives in 2024 so that its ESA program can be enacted in 2025.

Heading into the 2024 election cycle, Governor Abbott and other school advocates knew they needed to pick up 13 seats in the Texas House to have the votes to pass an ESA bill next year. Six Texas House incumbents who opposed the ESA lost in the March primary, and then three anti-choice GOP incumbents lost in the May primary. Meanwhile, five retiring Texas House Republicans who opposed Gov. Abbott’s ESA law will be replaced by pro-ESA Republicans next year. Thanks to the results of spring primaries, 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 the results of the 2024 state legislative contest make expanding school choice more likely in 2025. In South Carolina, for example, Republicans increased their majorities in the state legislature, picking up four seats in the state Senate to win a supermajority. in that room, 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 passed in 2023, which was struck down by the South Carolina Supreme Court in September. Moreover, given the changes brought to the South Carolina Supreme Court in recent months, a broader, even universal, ESA bill is likely to withstand legal challenges if the legislature passes one next year.

Recent years have seen a major expansion of school choice in the US, thanks to the passage of reforms in more than a dozen states that create new school choice programs or expand existing ones. While Gov. Greg Abbott works to implement a new ESA program in Texas, his Tennessee counterpart, Gov. Bill Lee (R), aims to make the state’s existing ESA program, currently available in three counties, at the state level. state in 2025.

As new school choice programs are debated, older ones are still under attack

There’s no denying that there has been a historic expansion of school choice in recent years, and that polls show bipartisan, cross-ideological support for programs that give families more educational options. A survey conducted by Texas Southern University and the University of Houston this summer finder 69% support the ESA, with even higher rates of support among black (73% support) and Latino (72% support) residents.

Despite such favorable polls, proposals to create new school choice programs or expand existing programs remain the subject of criticism and vehement opposition from some quarters, 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 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 the path to the fairness that all our children deserve,” Heather DuBois Bourenane, executive director of the Wisconsin Public Education Network, said about Wisconsin education vouchers. Kyle Koenen, director of policy at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), responds to such criticism by stressing that “ultimate responsibility for school choice programs rests with parents,” adding that if “a school of choice is not meeting needs” . , parents can move their child to another school.”

Far from being unregulated, Wisconsin’s preferred schools face a number of strict regulations and standards. Dr. Will Flanders, director of research at WILL, co-authored a report which details the wide range of regulations Wisconsin schools of choice must comply with, including state testing requirements, teacher certification standards and financial accountability measures. In fact, some argue that the regulatory burden facing schools of choice in Wisconsin is so great that 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 Wisconsin Nonpartisan Policy Forum, for example, recently launched a study which showed that choice and charter schools in Wisconsin perform better on state tests than traditional public schools.”

In addition to his organization’s research, which has found that programs that expand school choice are beneficial for children and parents, Koenen also points to similar findings from the University of Arkansas. Demonstration project for school choicewhose research also attempts to control for demographic differences. Koenen says one of the most fundamental misconceptions expressed by opponents of school choice is the idea that school choice programs result in reduced funding for government-run schools.

In Wisconsin, after adjusting for inflation, state government now spends more per pupil than it did in 2000, data show DATA from the National Center for Education Statistics. The only time public school funding in Wisconsin has seen a decrease in recent decades was immediately after Act 10 went into effect in 2011, which gave local officials new cost-saving tools. The argument that Wisconsin’s voucher program diminishes funding for state-run schools is false, however.

New legislation to expand existing school choice programs and create new ones will begin debate in Austin, Columbia, Nashville and other state capitals starting in January. Even though their arguments have failed to prevent a historic expansion of school choice in recent years, teachers union lobbyists and their legislative allies are expected to continue to argue that voucher schools and ESA recipients are not responsible or taking money from government. – runs schools.