In one form or another, the school choice movement has been around a long time. But it has never received a shot in the arm like the one it got with the federal scholarship tax credit provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which became law last July. That provision includes the most ambitious choice initiative to date: a credit of up to $1,700 for individual taxpayers who contribute to scholarship-granting organizations for private-school tuition.
Not surprisingly, some public school advocates reacted with despair on social media:
“School choice is a tactic conservatives use to defund public education and create barriers for upward mobility.”
“School choice is a way to destroy public education and eventually push public tax dollars to private schools which are used to segregate students.”
“Vouchers are a tax break for the wealthy.”
“Giving money to [private] schools is stealing from public education, and I don’t want a dime of my money going towards it.”
Nor were policymakers immune, as reported in K–12 Dive:
[S]chool vouchers “sweep aside civil rights protections, support segregation, decimate public school budgets, and do not improve student outcomes.”
[T]he school choice program “will divert billions of taxpayer dollars to private religious schools that indoctrinate and can discriminate against students and their families based on the schools’ beliefs.”
Amidst all the negative rhetoric, this insightful comment stood out:
“If we are going to keep public schools, school administrators need to figure out a new delivery model. All-in-one schools are increasingly not what people want. If districts don’t adapt, private schools will continue to gain popularity, regardless of how good or bad they are.”
I could not agree more.
I have spent over 50 years as a public school educator. I know now is the time for public school leaders to embrace and learn from competition, not fear it.
