Campaign against school choice effective in election, but families still want it

Support for school choice has skyrocketed across the nation in the last few years, but three school choice measures on Tuesday’s ballot failed to pass.

Millions of dollars were spent to campaign against the measures in Colorado, Nebraska and Kentucky.

The widest margin was in Kentucky, where Amendment 2 failed with nearly 65% of people voting against it.

The ballot measure read: “To give parents choices in educational opportunities for their children, are you in favor of enabling the General Assembly to provide financial support for the education costs of students in kindergarten through 12th grade who are outside the system of common (public) schools by amending the Constitution of Kentucky.” 

However, a poll by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy from 2019 showed that 74% of voters from the state were in support of school choice when told that “school choice gives parents the right to use the tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs.” A similar percentage of Americans across states support school choice, too.

The poll surveyed a total of 625 registered voters with a ±4% margin of error. This included 314 Democrats, 261 Republicans, and 50 individuals who identified as independent or with another party. 

Around $8 million was spent against Amendment 2 with Protect Our Schools Kentucky leading the charge, contributing just over $7 million as of Oct. 10 – the largest amount spent from any group supporting or opposing the ballot measure, according to the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance. Another $8 million was spent in support of the measure, with the largest amount from the Protect Freedom Political Action Committee at $3.75 million. 

School districts officials and teachers’ unions also campaigned strongly against the ballot measure, and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear opposed it, too. U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, supported it. 

“Undeniably, the movement for putting families first faced a setback in Kentucky, but the fight is not over, and the anti-student, pro-bureaucrat movement’s victory will be short-lived,” Kentucky Representative-elect TJ Roberts told The Lion.  

“There will be state-level fights to protect children in Kentucky’s schools, and there is a bill in Congress for universal school choice that Kentucky’s anti-Christian Blaine Amendments will not be able to defeat,” he continued. 

The proposal in Colorado was defeated by a narrower margin, with just under 52% of voters opposing it. The measure would have amended the constitution and established “the right to school choice for children in kindergarten through 12th grade, and, in connection therewith, declaring that school choice includes neighborhood, charter, and private schools; home schooling; open enrollment options; and future innovations in education.”  

In Nebraska, voters repealed the Opportunity Scholarships of Nebraska by a 57 to 43 margin. This is a tax-credit scholarship program that provides 5,500 scholarships for students at 100% of the poverty level, as well as “students with ‘exceptional needs,’ who have experienced bullying, in the foster system, in military families, or have been denied option enrollment by public schools.”  

The tax-credit scholarship program is funded by private donors, who receive tax credits on donations to non-profits that provide the scholarships. Opponents of the program spent over $7 million in the pro-repeal campaign compared to only $1.45 million spent by school choice supporters.