December 28, 2023
Year in Review: The Biggest K-12 Education Policy Wins from the States
All Americans, regardless of their background or political leanings, believe children should have access to a quality education—one that sets them up to have a meaningful, happy life.
Unfortunately, America’s education system is failing to prepare our children for a successful career and life.
To improve education outcomes for children, many states adopted reforms in 2023, including school choice policies—which give parents and their kids access to alternative education options. State think tanks across the country were instrumental in helping lawmakers advance these policies that give hope to millions of children looking for a quality education.
In the US, where you live determines where you go to school. A child’s Zip code determines the public school that child will attend. Many public schools do an excellent job at educating their students and preparing them for college and life. But unfortunately, some public schools are failing to give their students the tools they need to succeed. And those public schools are usually located in poor and underserved neighborhoods.
Parents who are well off can afford to send their children to a private school if they live in a school district with a poor performing public school. Lower income families, however, don’t have the means to pay for alternative education options like private school.
School choice, or parental choice, is a policy that empowers these lower income families with something they’ve never had—options when it comes to their education. School choice comes in many forms, including Education Savings Accounts, tax-credit scholarship programs, or school vouchers. These policies help families pay for alternative education options for their children, including private school or even homeschool.
In 2023, seven states adopted universal school choice policies—which means all students in the state are eligible to access the program:
This brings the number of states with universal school choice to 9—with Arizona and West Virginia passing similar policies in previous years. Several state think tanks in this Network, including Opportunity Arkansas, The James Madison Institute, John Locke Foundation, The Buckeye Institute, Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, and Libertas Institute played a key role in advancing universal school choice legislation in their respective states.
Platte Institute helped pass Nebraska’s first school choice legislation in the form of tax credit scholarships. This law will enable the next generation of Nebraskans to gain access to the education that best fits their educational needs, regardless of income level or Zip code.
Not all significant education policy wins in 2023 had to do with school choice. In Oregon, thanks in large part to the Cascade Policy Institute, lawmakers passed a law which allows students under 18 to take the GED exam with their parents’ permission.
Previously, Oregon students under 18 could take the GED only in limited circumstances, such as if they had dropped out of high school, were married or emancipated, or were in juvenile detention.
Cascade Policy Institute secured bipartisan sponsorship and support of a bill to remove those obstacles. Students now can earn an objective credential employers and colleges respect when they are ready to prove their academic competency.
Badger Institute and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty were part of a coalition of organizations in Wisconsin pushing this past legislative session for an increase in the per-child state funding for the state’s school choice program.
The problem was that the voucher size—$8,300 for K-8 students, $9,045 for high schoolers—was too far below the actual cost of education, especially at the high school level. While 55,000 children are taking part in school choice in Wisconsin as of this fall, the need for schools to fundraise simply to keep the lights on—choice schools must accept the voucher as full payment in Wisconsin and can charge no added tuition—meant a shortage of seats especially at the secondary level. Several schools, including some large legacy high schools in Milwaukee, were projecting imminent financial straits, and one already had folded.
But thanks to a comprehensive campaign by Badger Institute and WILL, Wisconsin lawmakers agreed to boost per-child funding in choice to about $9,500 per child for K-8 students and about $12,000 per child for high-schoolers. The figures are still below the average per-pupil spending in district schools (just over $15,000), but the gap as been narrowed, and the Legislature now speaks of the issue in terms of parity.
In addition, WILL also successfully challenged a lawsuit that would have ended Wisconsin’s voucher program—and in effect end educational options for more than 60,000 students statewide. In mid-December, the Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously denied a petition for original jurisdiction to challenge the constitutionality of the state’s voucher programs. The Liberty Justice Center was also involved, as they filed an amicus brief urging the court to reject the petition.
If you are a state think tank that has a win you’d like included in the list, please email Camille Walsh at walsh@spn.org.
