A Bright Spot for Sure: Educational Freedom in 2023

Jason Sorens briefly noted this in his overview of liberty in the year behind and ahead, and Cato’s Colleen Hroncich has laid it out in more detail. In 2023, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, and Utah all passed laws creating universal education savings accounts (ESAs). ESAs let families use funds for myriad educational expenses, including private school tuition, tutoring, purchasing science equipment, and more. These states followed Arizona expanding to universal ESAs in 2022, and West Virginia reaching near-​universality in 2021. Meanwhile, Oklahoma created the first universal refundable tax-​credit, and Ohio, North Carolina, and Indiana moved to universal, or nearly so, vouchers.

Why the sudden burst of light?

First, it was not so sudden. 2021 had also been a banner year, with 19 states creating new private choice programs or expanding older ones. The primary driver both years was likely frustration over public school closures under COVID-19, closures that tended to carry on far longer than at private schools. Once re-​opened for in-​person instruction, new battles ensued over vaccination and masking policies. And unlike disgust over academically troubled or dangerous public schools, long a primary choice motivator, wealthy families could not typically avoid these frustrations by buying a house in an expensive district. Public schools overall tended to err toward caution, getting funded whether they reopened before feeling completely safe or not. Private schools, in contrast, must always attract families to survive, and under COVID had to seriously consider both the cons and the pros of reopening.

Also advancing choice were cultural conflicts that ignited around the country, especially over diversity, equity, and inclusion thrusts in public schools after the murder of George Floyd, and books depicting sexual activity, especially LGBTQ, in classrooms and libraries. Many policymakers opposed to “woke” content turned, in part, to choice, as likely did some just hoping to defuse conflict by moving away from winner-​take-​all public schooling.

Despite huge progress, 2023 was not all wine and roses. Many choice advocates had long believed that once a program enrolled children it would be impossible to kill. The optics of throwing thousands of kids out of their schools would have been too ugly for most politicians to risk. Wrong: In November, the Illinois legislature refused to continue the state’s Invest in Kids tax credit, stopping funding used by nearly 10,000 students to attend private schools.

While against expectations, if any state were going to kill a choice program, it would be Illinois; solid blue, with arguably the most powerful and aggressive union in the country: the Chicago Teachers Union. The program was also a bit of a miracle to begin with, squeezed into a 2017 spending bill that overhauled state education spending and allowed delayed funding to flow to public schools.

Even with this retrenchment, the prospects for choice in purple and even blue states are brightening. Though choice died in Illinois, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker over the last couple of years changed his stance from hostility to tepid support, saying he would sign a bill that extended Invest in Kids. Meanwhile, Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has been an outspoken supporter of private choice. He disappointed choice advocates in 2023 when he vetoed an ESA program out of what he deemed legislative necessity, but the legislature later expanded Pennsylvania’s scholarship tax credit, which he signed.

This is promising for the long-​term future of choice. If Democrats increasingly believe in empowering families, and that begins to outweigh the ire of teacher unions and other special interests, choice will have achieved long hoped for escape velocity. 2024 probably will not confirm this – it is very difficult to have a banner year every year – but the choice movement, like any political movement, should not be judged on year-​to-​year advances.

It should be judged on long-​term trends, and those, with great thanks to 2023, are pointing distinctly upward.