Freedom is a popular thing. But those who oppose educational freedom have resorted to inventing bits of conventional wisdom about its lack of appeal to various groups, using them as bulwarks to keep school choice from advancing.
So, we are told school choice is only for Republicans; for white people; for rich people. Most egregiously, the Rev. Joseph Lowery pleaded in radio advertisements opposing the 2012 charter-schools amendment, “Don’t let them re-segregate our schools.”
About a week after those ads began airing, that amendment passed with 59 percent of the vote — including 62 percent in counties carried by Barack Obama and 72 percent in Clayton, DeKalb and Fulton combined. But if that wasn’t sufficient evidence that support for school choice is broader than its opponents let on, here’s some more.
Seventy percent of Georgians surveyed in May said they support the state’s tax-credit scholarships, which help more than 13,000 students pay for private school tuition.
The poll was conducted by a nonpartisan firm for the Economics of Education Policy Center at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville. It was in the field about a month after school-choice opponents filed a lawsuit against the tax-credit scholarship program.
The most interesting findings were the ones that showed support for the program crossing lines of party, race and income.
Self-described Democrats supported the program by a margin of 2.5-to-1. Support was actually a little higher (though not statistically significantly so) among middle- and low-income African Americans than the state as a whole.
When faced with defeat, school-choice opponents commonly retreat to a favorite position: means-testing. Put another way, they seem to believe that, if we must allow students to escape the traditional public schools in their neighborhoods, we should offer that option only to kids from lower-income families.
Here again, the poll results fly in the face of this artificial construct.
Support for making tax-credit scholarships open to all, “regardless of income,” was virtually the same as general support, at 69 percent. Among Democrats, support was at 65 percent. Middle- and low-income African Americans favored universal choice by a 3-to-1 margin.
Maybe they understand better than their elected representatives that the education market they wish to join will work best if it has as many participants as possible.
“Almost every Georgian who supports choice” — more than 90 percent of them — “wants it to be open to all,” notes Ben Scafidi, head of the Economics of Education Policy Center when the survey was conducted (he has since moved to Kennesaw State).
The reverse is also true: “Almost every Georgian who opposes school choice wants it to be means-tested,” Scafidi says. It seems income restrictions are simply a fallback position for those who don’t like these programs in the first place.
Amid this mounting evidence, the question for legislators in next year’s session isn’t which next step to take, but how many and how fast. They have every reason to think the public will be ready to have their backs — not, as choice opponents would have us believe, their throats.
