‘Parents will be watching’: How will the blue wave affect school choice nationwide? 

As Democrats ride a nationwide blue wave, school choice supporters are urging states such as Texas to act to protect school choice funding before the new governor takes power.

Texas Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa, whose race against Republican Gov. Greg Abbott featured education as a major flashpoint, has promised to roll back school choice in the state.

“We will work tirelessly to repair the damage of the Texas voucher scam,” she said following her win. “This is a victory for the parents of Texas.”

But school choice advocates say the more than 100,000 families whose scholarships may be ripped away will not see it that way. They’re proposing a way to potentially save Texas’ program before it’s too late.

“Gov. Abbott could call a special session to protect school choice for more than 100,000 Texas families,” Heritage Foundation research fellow Corey DeAngelis told Heartlander News. He noted that the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program “is currently funded by a discrete appropriation, which means the incoming governor can use her line-item veto power to zero it out in the next budget.”

“The current Republican Legislature can pass a bill in special session to move the program into the state school funding formula instead,” he said. “That change would make the funding a statutory entitlement rather than a single line item, largely eliminating the ability to kill it with a line-item veto.”

EdChoice President Robert Enlow agreed, saying the group has been calling on Texas to change the funding mechanism for years and “certainly” would call on Abbott to do it now.

“One of our concerns about Texas’ bill from the very beginning was it wasn’t connected to a steady stream of funding, and people freak out when they hear the term a billion dollars and forget that you spend $101 billion on K-12 education,” he said, noting that school choice funding should be “sustainable.”

“We think that it would be great if Texas were to go ahead and put it into the funding formula automatically, and then the fight becomes a legislative fight rather than a fight over the budget, which she [Hinojosa] can just simply defund.”

Heartlander News reached out to Abbott’s office for comment.

Arizona could face the biggest threat

The “biggest danger” to school choice is in Arizona, where Democrats won a trifecta, controlling the House, Senate and governorship, DeAngelis said.

“They could try to rip away scholarships from more than 100,000 kids or sabotage the program through death by a thousand cuts,” he added, calling on parents in the state to “make their voices heard and fight back against tyrants who want to force children back into failing government schools.”

Enlow agreed there will be a fight in the state but argued that a Democratic trifecta “does not necessarily mean a trifecta against choice.”

“There’s a fight about choice going on in that state,” he said, adding that he thinks the more than 100,000 families benefiting from school choice in Arizona will “say we want to keep our choices.”

“I think just to say it flipped, therefore it’s anti-choice, is not necessarily the truth,” he said, while acknowledging that Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and the incoming superintendent do not support school choice. “So, it’s going to be a fight.”

Other states to watch

While there will be fights in Texas and Arizona, as well as North Carolina, New Hampshire and Iowa, which also saw Democratic gains, Enlow said there will be opportunities for school choice in states including Alabama, Florida, Arkansas, North Dakota and Montana.

DeAngelis said that in states where Republicans still control at least one chamber, such as North Carolina and Iowa, he’s “less worried” about programs being gutted.

Kansas is another state to watch.

“School choice advocates hoped Kansas would elect a Republican governor who could pass universal school choice,” he said. “Instead, the state is stuck with another Democrat opposed to school choice.”

A national look

Enlow cautioned against viewing the blue wave as a nationwide referendum on school choice and warned that families shouldn’t become “collateral damage” in the political shift.

Affordability topped voters’ minds this election cycle, not school choice, Enlow argued, and taking students’ scholarships away would only make education less affordable.

“It would be a mistake to presume that this was an anti-choice election,” he said, adding that Democratic wins shouldn’t give license to hurt families taking advantage of educational freedom.

DeAngelis agreed, saying that if Democrats want to retain power, they should “choose their battles wisely and leave families alone.”

“Ripping scholarships away from low-income families will not look good,” he said. While the blue wave may slow the expansion of new programs, he added, parents using existing programs will “not accept rollbacks quietly.”

DeAngelis said that while anti-school-choice campaign rhetoric “may have been partly posturing to win elections,” teachers unions and their base will expect action.

“The real test comes in budgets and legislation,” he said, looking ahead. “Parents will be watching and organizing.”