Choosing Choice Our ZIP code-mandated education system (Z MES) is rapidly losing favor. By Larry Sand
https://amgreatness.com/2025/04/23/choosing-choice/
Texas is on the verge of becoming the latest state to embrace educational freedom. On April 17, the Texas House gave final approval to a bill that would create an Educational Savings Account program, bringing Gov. Greg Abbott’s top legislative priority very close to reality. The bill now heads to the state Senate, where it will most likely pass. With ESAs, money is deposited into a government-authorized savings account with restricted but multiple uses. Those funds can cover private school tuition and fees, online learning programs, private tutoring, community college costs, higher education expenses, and other approved customized learning services and materials.
While any student can apply, the Texas program prioritizes students with disabilities and those from lower-income families. House lawmakers also capped spending for students in families above 500% of the poverty level at 20% of program funds. With over five million students, the program can’t serve everyone at this time. The legislature, however, can appropriate more money for the program in future years.
Also new on the school choice scene is Tennessee, where parents can apply to participate in the state’s new ESA program in May. The program begins in the fall, and parents can access up to $7,295 a year. During the first year, half of the funding would be reserved for students whose families fall below an income limit that is set at 300% of the amount required to qualify for free or reduced-price meals, or $173,160 for a family of four. The other half would have no income restrictions.
Other states are also moving toward parental freedom. In South Carolina, negotiations are underway in the legislature for a program that will accept at least 15,000 students and can increase if the state’s General Assembly allocates additional money. To be eligible, families could earn no more than 300% of the federal poverty level in the first year. The income cap will rise to 500% of the federal poverty level in subsequent years.
Idaho and Wyoming also joined the movement earlier this year, and New Hampshire and North Dakota are taking steps to create universal school choice.
Nationally, 36 states now have some kind of private school choice. Patrick Wolf, a Professor of Education Policy at the University of Arkansas who has studied school choice systems extensively, contrasted the rapid spread of choice over the last few years with the slower progress seen in the 2000s and 2010s. In particular, he said that ESAs stand out as having found their moment.
“It’s been amazing to see from a movement that had plateaued and seemed stagnant just before COVID. Now it’s dynamic like crazy, with all kinds of variations and evolutions that we didn’t anticipate even six or seven years ago.”
Things are also happening on the federal level. The Educational Choice for Children Act of 2025, promoted by the U.S. House of Representatives education subcommittee, would create a tax break for individuals and corporations that make donations toward tuition costs at private and religious schools. The tax credit would also cover donations for instructional materials, tutoring, therapy for students with disabilities, and dual enrollment for private and public school students.
If enacted, the measure would become the first federally sponsored school choice program. Currently, there are 26 tax credit scholarship programs in 21 states nationwide.
In a system of education tax credits, individuals and businesses get a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for contributions to scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs). So, where tax credits are in play, if a taxpayer owes $10,000 in taxes, he can divert half of it to an SGO, the other half going to the government. The taxpayer is out $10,000 either way, so no tax savings are involved.
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten absurdly calls the proposal “an attempt to redistribute dollars to the wealthy through another tax cut, pretending it’s for schools.” Additionally, she incoherently called the plan a “likely illegal scheme to diminish choice and deny classrooms resources to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.”
One type of school choice rarely discussed is open enrollment.” Under this arrangement, students are not locked into their local public school but can attend one outside their neighborhood. One such attempt is making headway in Missouri.
In March, the state House of Representatives passed a bill allowing districts to decline student transfers from other areas, but it could not prevent their students from leaving. The state would provide per-pupil funding, totaling roughly $6,700, to follow each child to their new destination.
Critics of the proposal say it will introduce still more instability into school finance and governance, ultimately “leading to districts battling among themselves for families who operate as free agents.”
Bingo! I can’t think of a better way to improve education than to introduce competition, just like private industry. Parents will continue to send their children to their local school if it is doing an adequate job.
Naysayer Todd Fuller, communications director of the Missouri State Teachers Association, worries that a “downward spiral of competition would benefit a few districts and gradually strip the rest of badly needed resources.”
The public education ship is indeed sinking, and many kids need lifejackets. In 2019, 35% of 4th graders scored at or above the NAEP reading proficiency standard, dropping to 33% in 2022 and further to 31% in 2024. The percentage of 4th graders scoring “below basic” in 2024 was 40%, the largest in 20 years. Some 33% of 8th graders scored below basic on the latest exam—a record low.
Public schools have been monopolies for far too long, and even worse, they lock children in with ZIP code mandates. Can you imagine a law that forces families to buy food from the government-run supermarket down the street—even if it sells rancid meat and moldy fruit?
It’s time to end our ZIP code-mandated education system—Z MES—immediately!
The U.S. Supreme Court will decide on two important education freedom cases during its current session. I will delve into them in a future post.
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