How to Defend School Choice

The hard work of empowering families and uplifting students has only just begun.

The school-choice movement has entered a new phase: defending our victories.

The past two years have seen unprecedented progress toward letting families pick the schools that are best for their children. Most notably, some 13 states have passed Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), with several more potentially following suit this year. ESAs typically give families thousands of dollars to spend on their children’s education, opening the door to more tailored learning options that put them on the best path in life. While these victories should be celebrated, school-choice opponents are already fighting to roll them back. ESAs need to be implemented flawlessly so that it’s much harder to take away families’ newfound freedom.

I say this as someone who’s seen what happens when school-choice programs aren’t implemented well. As CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute in 2017, I supported the creation of the Illinois tax-credit scholarship program, Invest in Kids. While the program is now famous because Democrats recently let it expire, the truth is that school-choice advocates failed to rally Illinoisans around it. The program was complicated, which limited its growth and the number of children who benefited. We needed a simpler policy and a relentless moral argument to make it unassailable.