Even In A Red Wave, Voters Reject School Vouchers

As has often been noted, school vouchers have never survived being put to a vote. Despite all the noise voucherphiles make about how beloved school choice is among the people, when you actually ask voters if they want vouchers, they say no.

Three states tested that record in this election, and the voters said no yet again.

Colorado tried to amend the state constitution to put in place a right to school choice. The amendment was spectacularly awful, creating the potential for endless lawsuits and unmanageable demands by parents. Even the Christian Home Educators recognized that it was a spectacularly bad idea. 

While Colorado broke for Harris, it also sent wingnut Lauren Boebert back to the House. But it said no to the amendment by about 100,000 votes. 

In Kentucky, choice fans were miffed that the state supreme court could actually read and understand the plain language of their constitution, which says 

No sum shall be raised or collected for education other than in common schools until the question of taxation is submitted to the legal voters, and the majority of the votes cast at said election shall be in favor of such taxation

So the court rejected various attempts to use public tax dollars for private school vouchers, and voucherphiles decided they's just have to get the constitution rewritten.

Kentucky went 65% - 34% for Trump, and swept all sorts of MAGA officials back into office. Pretty much those exact numbers went the other way for the amendment, sending it down in flames. 

Nebraska had perhaps the longest row to hoe, as the legislature passed a voucher law in 2023. Voters successfully petitioned to put a repeal of that law on the ballot, so the legislators repealed and replaced it themselves in an attempt to do an end run around voters. So a second petition was circulated, and repeal of the new law was placed on the ballot.

That repeal passed, and Nebraska's voucher law is now toast.

Voucher fans are pointing at spending by anti-privatization groups as the big factor here. But that avoids acknowledging the main problem here, which is that voters do not like the idea of paying taxes to fund discriminatory private schools by subsidizing tuition for the wealthy instead of using taxpayer dollars to fund their public schools. 

Reformster Mike McShane argues that "none of this matters" and that "school choice is still on the march," which is true in the sense that the main tactic of privatizers remains getting friendly legislators to ignore the voting public and just go ahead and create voucher programs. Just look at Texas, where the now years-long fight by Governor Greg Abbott to get vouchers in the state has not hinged on changing the public's mind or arguing the merits of vouchers, but on using a mountain of money to tilt elections so that he can get enough voucher-friendly legislators in place to give him vouchers.

A couple years ago, voucher supporters very deliberately dropped the idea of vouchers being good for academics or equity-- arguments that they hoped would bring left-leaning collaborators into the fold-- and replaced them with culture panic arguments. 

This election was the first test of that strategy. God help us, culture panic yielded the gobsmacking and heartbreaking result of returning the least qualified, most treasonous President ever to the White House and giving him a Congress of MAGA lickspittles to support his every random idea. 

But even the biggest, ugliest red wave in modern history could not wash away voter dislike for school vouchers. Opposition to privatization and support for public schools is a non-partisan position, supported by people all across the political spectrum.