Advocates Dub 2023 ‘Year of Universal School Choice’

Nearly every state offers some form of school choice for its K-12 programs. Some provide charter schools, while others use Education Savings Accounts (ESA) and variations of allowing public funding to pay for religious institutions. Additionally, advocates believe 2023 is the year of Universal Choice.

Having a basic knowledge of these programs and how the states fund school choice is important. Who are the advocates behind this decades-long movement?

According to Dan Laitsch, Vermont and Maine offer tuition vouchers to families who live in a locality without available public schools. These vouchers can be used at public or private non-parochial schools and have been in place since the mid-1800s. Then, in 1955, American economist Milton Friedman proposed a change in the funding and governing of public K-12 schools.

The economist suggested states allow parents to obtain school choice vouchers for use in the private sector. Parents would no longer have to rely on government-provided neighborhood schools.

His proposal came a year after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren (1891-1974) delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The May 17, 1954, sentence ended state-sanctioned public school segregation, which violated the 14th Amendment.

Furthermore, Friedman’s proposal launched the ongoing effort to reform and privatize the U.S. public school system. By 2013, 18 states and the District of Columbia had some form of publically-funded school choice tuition voucher or tax credit program.

New State School Choice Programs

Congressional Republicans began a stronger push to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and replace it with school choice in 2015. Today, state legislatures’ push to privatize education added six more states allowing nearly all students to use public funding to attend private schools. This is usually called Universal Choice.

Bella DiMarco, a policy analyst at the agency that tracks private school choice policy at FutureEd, told EdWeek, “This is not a new thing, but what we’re seeing now is very new. This is really the universal year.”

As of June 15, 2023, eight states either started or expanded private school programs; Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Oklahoma, Utah, Arizona, and West Virginia.

EdWeek explained that these states now have universal or near-universal eligibility, reflecting a “major momentum for school choice advocates who have dubbed 2023 the year of universal choice.”

During the first five months this year, 14 state legislatures passed bills to create or expand existing school choice programs. EdChoice and FutureEd also reported that lawmakers in 42 states had introduced similar bills.

In Wisconsin, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is set to sign an update to their state voucher program to give families more money.

North Carolina recently approved a bill that increases the state’s school choice program. The state’s Opportunity Scholarships Voucher Program will be available for all students if passed.

The following policies dramatically expanded school choice policies have taken three forms:

• Education savings accounts allow parents to use allocated public school funds to cover various education expenses, including private school and homeschooling costs.
• Vouchers give students’ families a set amount of money to cover private school tuition.
• “Tax credit scholarship programs allow businesses and individuals to receive tax credits for donations to organizations that provide private school scholarships.”

Finally, most states use dollars allocated for education to fund these programs. According to Christian Barnard, a Reason Foundation senior policy analyst, Iowa, Mississippi, and New Hampshire use equal amounts of allocated funds to support their programs. However, Arizona, Indiana, and Arkansas only spend some of the budgeted funds for their ESAs. Barnard further explains these states “devote 90% of the state’s base funding amount per public school student to families enrolled in the choice programs.”

Written by Cathy Milne-Ware

Sources:

Simon Fraser University: After 60 Years, Do The Arguments For K-12 Vouchers Still Hold? By Dan Laitsch
Education Week: 6 More States Will Soon Let Almost All Students Attend Private School With Public Money; by Libby Stanford
American Federation for Children: 21 (soon 22) School Choice States; by Matt Frendewey
National Archives: Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Education Week: Education Savings Accounts, Explained; by Libby Stanford and Mark Lieberman
National Alliance for Public Charter Schools: How Many Charter Schools and Students Are There? By Jamison White
Education Week: Do Vouchers and ESAs Take Money From Public Schools? How States Fund School Choice; by Mark Lieberman

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