COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republicans nationally will support “universal school choice” as part of the policy platform they will adopt at the party’s convention in Milwaukee next week. For its supporters, the goal is the culmination of decades of efforts to preserve parents’ autonomy in choosing their children’s schools. For its opponents, it is a thinly veiled plan to undermine public education.
This term can mean different things to different people – from removing school boundaries to open enrollment to the ability to design your child’s individual curriculum and parental control over course content from preschool through high school.
But education experts across the political spectrum interpret the language of the Republican platform as an endorsement of the approach taken in states such as West Virginia and Ohio, which provide tax-funded vouchers or scholarships that allow a child to attend any public or private school, regardless of income.
“Our view is that it’s about your money, your kids and your choice of where they want to go to school,” said Lisa B. Nelson, CEO of the American Legislative Exchange Council, which launched an Education Freedom Alliance in January to fight for just that. About a dozen states already have such programs, and proposals are pending in another 16 states, the alliance said.
Nelson said this is the first time the Republican platform has gone beyond simply supporting school choice to calling for it to be a universal option. It remains unclear how this will be achieved, since the platform also calls for shutting down the U.S. Department of Education, created in 1979, and returning education policy “to the states where it belongs.”
There was no immediate response from Republican Donald Trump’s presidential campaign team to a request for comment on the platform.
“Republicans believe that families should have the opportunity to choose the best education for their children,” the program states.
James Singer, a spokesman for President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, said closing the department – which oversees Head Start, administers student financial aid programs, conducts educational research and enforces civil rights laws – “is not only bad policy, but would deprive our most vulnerable children of vital supports and reduce their chances of graduating from high school or going on to college.”
Chad Aldis, vice president for Ohio policy at the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, said declaring universal school choice a policy goal and implementing that goal are two very different things.
“I think empowering families through high-quality options is the right approach. However, questions need to be answered about how much funding is available in specific areas and whether there are income restrictions,” he said.
State programs have faced a number of legal and practical questions as they expanded their voucher programs. The scholarships were once available only to low-income students in academically underperforming districts, but they have now become a universal offering that applies to public, private, religious and charter schools. Opponents argue that the broad programs take money away from public schools, which serve the majority of the nation’s students, and benefit higher-income families who choose to attend high-priced private or religious schools.
West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship Program survived a constitutional challenge in 2022, but the number of school districts joining a lawsuit against Ohio’s EdChoice has skyrocketed since the voucher program went into general apply last summer.
This year’s Republican platform also calls for equal treatment for “homeschooling families,” which could take universality to a up-to-date level.
Kim Anderson, executive director of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, said the Republican plan would “wreak havoc on the lives of American families” without addressing the two top priorities parents have told her members: the availability of mental health services and school safety.
“Public education has been a common good in this country since its inception, and eliminating public education threatens our democracy, our economy and the fabric of a diverse, inclusive society,” she said.
Other policy priorities include: cutting government funding for any school that engages in “inappropriate political indoctrination”; ensuring that students can pray and read the Bible in school; “toughening” school disciplinary measures as a means of curbing violence; abolishing tenure for teachers and introducing performance-related pay; and opposing efforts to nationalise civics education.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, condemned the entire Republican education program, saying it created “a mechanism to cut funds and give tax breaks to the rich.”
“My question to them is: What are they afraid of?” she said. “Why are they afraid of critical thinking? Why are they afraid of the freedom to learn and teach? Why are they afraid of honest history? Why are they afraid of diversity?”
ALEC’s Nelson said pro-choice advocates believe that intense competition makes all schools better.
And calls for expanding school choice are not just coming from Republicans. In Louisiana, six Democrats voted for a law on universal school choice in April.
“When I see children living in poverty, stuck in failing schools, and barely able to read, I will not continue to defend the status quo, no matter how hard I try,” said Democratic Representative Jason Hughes of New Orleans on the floor before casting his vote.
Democrats also voted for greater school choice in Nebraska and Pennsylvania. In Georgia, Representative Mesha Mainor left the party last year, partly because of disagreements over education vouchers.
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