This probably won’t be another “year of school choice.”
Mike McShane, the national research director at EdChoice, argues that’s OK. The ugly political vortex that consumed national policy debates in 2017 likely won’t get much better in an election year. Rather than charge headlong into the storm, he writes for U.S. News and World Report, the choice movement should pause and take stock. That, he adds, should include shoring up support across party lines.
Dips in support for charter schools set the sector ablaze when they were released this year. Private school choice fared better, but school choice, and particularly private school choice, risks becoming a one-party policy. This isn’t how it has been in the past, and shouldn’t be how it is in the future. In a year that will be ugly politically, school choice supporters should work to try and mend fences, not build walls.
Right now, the map of states that offer private school scholarships still looks a lot like an electoral map. But while scholarships veered toward becoming one-party policy in the national debate, they picked up a few bipartisan victories at the state level in 2017. Illinois is now the largest blue state with a tax credit scholarship program. Florida lawmakers passed private school choice legislation with strong bipartisan support.
Illinois created its new tax credit scholarship program in a legislative package that bailed out cash-strapped Chicago Public Schools and boosted public-school funding across the state. Similarly, in Florida, Democrats who supported the school choice legislation talked about how scholarship programs complement — rather than harm — existing public schools. For people looking to mend fences, those Democrats’ views deserve a closer look.
