Oh, What A Year (For School Choice)

At the Linebacker Lounge, across from Notre Dame stadium in South Bend, Indiana, the bar staff signal last call (or at least did a decade ago when I was last there) by playing Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons’ “December 1963 (Oh What a Night)”

Oh, what a night

Late December back in sixty-three

What a very special time for me

As I remember, what a night

Looking back on the progress that private school choice programs made in 2023, we might be able to rework the lyrics:

Oh, what a year,

Started January twenty-three

What an opportunity

What a session, what a year

I’ll quote the Physician’s Desk Reference of the private school choice movement, EdChoice’s ABCs of School Choice, to paint full the picture:

“Policymakers in 40 states debated 111 educational choice bills—79 percent of which related to ESAs. As the months ticked by, a total of seven states enacted new choice programs and 10 expanded ones already in operation. As of this writing, eight states have joined Arizona and West Virginia in offering all students choice, making 2023 the Year of Universal Choice. With the release of this latest edition of The ABCs of School Choice, approximately 20 million students—or 36 percent—are now eligible for a private choice program.”

The ten states that now have universal or near-universal private school choice, either in the form of education savings accounts, voucher programs, or tax credits are, from West to East, Arizona, Utah, Oklahoma, Iowa, Arkansas, Indiana, Ohio, Florida, West Virgina, and North Carolina.

(And, it should be noted that Pennsylvania expanded its scholarship tax credit program just last week, taking the total number of program expansions, à la Spinal Tap, to 11.)

But it isn’t just the size and scope that is worth celebrating, the policy innovation is great too. School choice is simply an idea, it is the belief that parents should get to pick where their child goes to school. There are lots of ways to get there. It is great to see different states trying different approaches.

Let’s just look at three states—Indiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma—to illustrate what I mean.

Indiana pursued the most traditional path for private school choice. It created a voucher program during the first “year of school choice” back in 2011. Slowly but surely, it expanded eligibility for the program until 2023, when lawmakers raised the income cap to 400% of the income that qualifies a family for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program. This means that 98% of Hoosier families are now eligible. It is a standard voucher program, where students are only able to spend their scholarship at a single educational provider, and that provider is subject to regulations like having to administer the state’s standardized test. The average voucher amount is around $5,854, which is half of what Indiana spends on traditional public schools.

Arkansas created the Children’s Educational Freedom Account Program as part of the LEARNS Act, signed into law by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders in March. It allows students to access an education savings account funded with 90% of the state’s foundation funding, which was just over $7,300 for the 2022-23 school year. Students will be able to spend their ESA dollars on a wide range of educational products and services, including things like private school tuition, supplemental educational materials and resources, tutoring, and more. Eligibility is ramping up from the 2023-24 school year, with 1.5% of the total school population drawn from traditionally disadvantaged groups like students with special needs and foster children first eligible, moving to 3% in the 2024-25 school year, to universal eligibility in 2025-26.

Oklahoma created the Parental Choice Tax Credit which will give families a credit against their state income tax liability valued between $5,000 and $7,500 for those with children enrolled in private school and $1,000 for those who homeschool. Parents can claim any educational expense that they incur and can keep any of the credit value that exceeds their state tax liability. Any family in the state is eligible, and the program will eventually be capped at $250 million in credits.

These three states show three different paths to expanding educational choice. Each, of course, has its pros and its cons, and it would be pure hubris to think that we have discovered the one best way to provide educational choice in as big and diverse as a country that we have. Different states pursuing different policies is a good thing, and those of us who research school choice have the opportunity to follow developments in each of these states and compare the resulting educational ecosystems. Programs all across the country can refine and improve based on what we learn.

One thing that we’ve already learned is that promoting school choice does not have to come at the expense of traditional public schools. The Arkansas LEARNS Act was not just a school choice bill. It included substantial raises for Arkansas public school teachers, investments in improving literacy, and ensured 12 weeks of paid maternity leave for public school personnel. You can agree or disagree with any of the constituent parts of that legislation, but it is impossible to say that it was just about creating a new school choice program. The story was similar in Ohio, which paired its school choice expansion with a nearly 12% increase in public school funding and more, and Oklahoma, that paired its school choice policy with substantial teacher pay raises, increases to education funding, paid maternity leave, and more. I could go on, but you get the point.

We must end on one solemn note, though. There is one politician who deserves a big lump of coal in his most likely gold-threaded cashmere stocking this Christmas. That would be Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker. For all of the progress in school choice this year, Illinois killing its scholarship tax credit program was a huge step backward. It takes some serious chutzpah for a billionaire who attended a private boarding school that costs $64,800 per year to cut off the scholarships for almost 10,000 low-income students, but whatever you want to call it, it was shameful.

Warts and all, that’s 2023! We’ll see what 2024 has in store come January.