And I was struck by the takes of school choice supporters who did acknowledge the defeats. ExcelinEd’s Ben DeGrow argued, “Opponents have once again shown they can unsettle enough voters with rhetoric that ultimately denies students needed educational opportunities.” Jim Waters, president of Kentucky’s free-market Bluegrass Institute who was surprised by the size of the defeat, explained that rural voters have “emotional” ties to local public schools and hoped a federal choice program would allow in-state advocates “to bypass the establishment”—declaring “they wouldn’t be able to stop this.”
There is a lot one can say about such responses.
For a long time, we were told that legislatures could only pass narrowly targeted school choice bills because teachers unions were too powerful, opponents’ pockets were too deep, or suburban and rural GOP legislators feared angering their public school parents and educators.
Guess what? In a swath of red and purple states, those barriers have been breached in the past three years. That makes it disconcerting to hear the old excuses dusted off with regard to the referendum losses. Now, don’t get me wrong: These particulars obviously matter, and it’s certainly true that choice still has a lot of momentum behind it.
But it’s worth asking how it is that teachers unions can crush a choice referendum in red states even as their candidates are getting routed up and down the ballot. It’s not like unions stopped fighting voucher bills and ESAs in the statehouses. They’ve used the same scary rhetoric to unsettle voters and have appealed to the same emotional connections. And political scientists have long suggested that interest groups are most powerful when working in the shadowy confines of legislative bodies (twisting arms and trading favors), not in raucous public debates. So, why did unions and the public school lobby suddenly prove so much more potent at the ballot box? Why were red-state voters disinclined to vote for choice in the privacy of the voting booth when red-state legislators have been willing to publicly do so on the floor?
The answers are critical, because the major choice wins have been in red states. If those red-state politics are really more fragile than they appear to be, that’s an issue. If voters who say they generally support choice actually have significant qualms that aren’t showing up in the polling data, that’s a problem. Meanwhile, setbacks like these are sure to embolden opponents and sow doubts among choice-friendly officeholders.
And the suggestion that Congress needs to help choice advocates “bypass” opposition in Kentucky should scare the heck out of those who can recall that same plea being made on behalf of No Child Left Behind, teacher evaluation, or the Common Core—and how badly it ultimately boomeranged. A core strength of the school choice movement has long been its deep roots in states and communities. Unlike so many edu-fads, choice has never been able to skip past the hard work of forging local coalitions.
For what it’s worth, it strikes me that, in Kentucky and Nebraska, choice advocates forgot what had fueled their recent success. The tough work of navigating legislatures has brought a healthy discipline to choice advocacy. In wooing individual legislators, advocates have focused on program design, showing minimal short-term budget impact on district schools, and delivering the practical, reassuring message, “We just want to give families more options.” The referenda fights lacked that tight focus. The appeals got too online and too abstract. The excitable choice evangelists suddenly loomed much larger. Meanwhile, advocates ran ads that embraced the “pick a side” rhetoric. Consequently, the pro-choice case got framed by sound bites about the “magic of markets,” the need to “blow up zip code schooling,” and the case against “failing public schools.” The question then became: Are you for or against your local public schools?
Look, I could be wrong about this. But that’s why we need to hash out just what went down. After all, education is littered with the detritus of once high-flying reforms that lost their moorings.
It’s understandable that folks are reluctant to have this conversation. There’s a desire not to draw attention to bad news or negative narratives. There’s an impulse to demonstrate one’s team spirit. There’s fear that publicly acknowledging concerns can be read as a sign of going soft, signaling weakness, and alienating allies. The result is a temptation to put on a happy face and power through. But that kind of thinking is how a temporary loss of altitude turns into a deep spiral.
I’ve got a buddy who’s a pilot for United. I once asked him what advice he’d give a newbie about handling turbulence when you’re flying at 500 miles an hour. He said, “A good first tip? Keep your eyes wide open.”
