Washington, United States: Aside from the turmoil surrounding Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and his promises to seek vengeance on his political foes if he wins, the Republican frontrunner has seized on an issue that even some Democrats believe may draw new voters in 2024.
Trump supports “school choice” schemes in which government funding is used to send children to private and religious institutions. It’s a popular perspective among parents who are fed up with the status of public education in the United States.
According to the polls, over 70 percent of parents want to explore more educational alternatives. The issue is important enough to some voters that Trump’s backing might swing the presidential election and boost Republicans’ state and congressional contests.
“It’s popular among the Republican base, it’s popular among independents, and even popular among the Democratic base – in particular African-Americans and Hispanics,” said Jason Bedrick, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
In a breakthrough year for the school-choice movement, ten Republican-led states created or expanded programs in 2023 that enable varied uses of public tax resources for private education help—from tuition to tutoring and therapy.
According to reform supporters, the inspiration is a logical development of the conservative “parents’ rights” movement, when safety concerns erupted into yelling battles at school board meetings about curriculum, learning loss, and diversity programs.
But some Democrats warn their candidates must embrace education options or risk ceding their historic edge over Republicans on the issue. However, many Democrats, backed by influential teachers’ unions, continue to view such schemes with distrust, claiming that they are Republican tactics to destroy public education while benefitting wealthy families.
Other Democrats caution that if their candidates do not embrace education alternatives, they risk losing their historic advantage over Republicans.
“If we don’t offer an alternative to private school choice, we are going to lose more voters on this issue,” said Jorge Elorza, CEO of Democrats for Education Reform, which favors school-choice options such as charter schools. “We’re going to lose close elections on this issue,” he added.
Elorza’s polling in four 2024 battleground states – Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina, found Republicans to have a three-point edge on the issue of which party people trust the most regarding education.
Elorza expressed particular concern for Black voters in areas such as Georgia, where a minor movement in the 2020 elections would have tipped the state toward Trump.
Encouraging voters
Following the passage of a broad state-funded voucher scheme by Republicans in Arizona last year, enrollment in the program surpassed budget expectations, prompting Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs to claim that it conflicts with other state goals. The program’s student body represents diverse demographics; 36 percent are Hispanic, and 20 percent are Black.
The bulk of the youngsters were already enrolled in private schools, which detractors used to imply that the program only favors wealthy parents.
According to Step Up for Students, the charity that manages the Florida program, around 108,000 of the over 227,000 students who now get aid come from families that qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches.
Shemeika Williams, a Black mother of three who works in a South Florida hospital, claimed she would be unable to finance her 17-year-old daughter’s private Christian academy if the state did not cover transportation and tuition charges.
Williams, 41, describes herself as an independent and said that the legislation makes it more likely that she would support Republican politicians in the future.
“I will support anyone who will benefit me and my family,” she said. “They are helping people who don’t have the resources,” Williams added.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said Trump seeks to “liberate students from failing schools and raise the quality of education across the board.”
School choice, Cheung said, “is an issue that should unify voters of all backgrounds.”
Democratic push-back
The problem derives from a significant difference in the caliber of educational institutions that accept private money.
Conservative advocacy organizations contend that there is much gain in student achievement without a comparable effect on public schools.
According to certain Democratic-leaning groups, recent elections showed that voters rejected the Republican stance on education.
The National Education Association, a teachers’ union, observed in a report last month that voters in Kentucky re-elected the Democratic governor in November in a contest in which the Republican candidate’s support for a voucher scheme became a major campaign issue. This year, education was a significant subject in elections around the country.
However, Republican candidates who supported private school choice programs were usually depicted by Democrats as supporting measures to restrict contentious educational materials and diversity efforts, making it impossible to assess the issue’s viability.