With the recent SCOTUS decision in Carson v. Makin raising more questions on school choice, it’s also bringing more focus to the November elections and how education issues will impact outcomes.
The SCOTUS ruling in Carson sheds light on expansion of school choice options, Lance Izumi, senior director of the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute, told the Northern California Record by email.
The Carson case involved a state program in Maine that gave tuition assistance to parents so their children could attend private schools, but not for religious private schools that included religious practices in their instruction.
“The Court ruled that preventing parents from choosing such religious schools was an unconstitutional discrimination against religion,” Izumi said. “Therefore, if states that have school-choice programs – such as publicly funded education savings accounts or vouchers that give families funding assistance for private schools – then the states cannot prevent that funding from going to private schools that include religious practices in instruction.”
Because California does not have such a school-choice program, Izumi noted this SCOTUS decision will not affect parents in our state at this time.
“If, however, California ever adopts a school-choice funding program in the future, then the Carson ruling would apply and the state would be barred from discriminating against religious private schools,” Izumi said. “Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion in Carson, said that states do not have to subsidize private education, but if they do then private religious schools cannot be excluded. For parents who support full constitutionally permissible school choice, as laid out in the Carson decision, they must make their voices heard to their elected representatives in order to change education policy in California.”
As parents were regularly exposed to classroom instruction during remote learning brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, a growing number have been looking for alternatives beyond their local school districts.
"Large numbers of Californians are in favor of having more educational options for children,” Izumi said. “First of all, people are extremely dissatisfied with the state’s public schools. A February 2022 UC Berkeley poll found that only 35% of voters gave their local school district an A or B grade, which was a huge drop from the 55% who gave their districts high grades a decade ago.”
Izumi noted that pollsters say that the decline shows that parents from across the political spectrum are disgruntled for a wide variety of reasons, not just the pandemic.
“Another poll, in April, found that among voters in 10 states, which included states such Texas, Colorado, and Missouri, California voters were the least satisfied with their public schools. California respondents in the poll were especially critical of their local teacher unions, which often were the driving force in keeping public schools closed during the pandemic. Parents have been dissatisfied with the poor implementation of remote learning during the pandemic, the huge learning losses suffered by students, the lack of transparency concerning important policies, the politicization of curriculum and teaching, and the unresponsiveness of school boards and officials to parent concerns.”
Dissatisfied parents have already been voting with their feet, Izumi said.
“In 2020, enrollment in the state’s public schools fell by 160,000, and in 2021, enrollment dropped by another 110,000,” Izumi said. “Even when students do not unenroll in public schools, they often don’t show up to class. In some school districts, up to four out of 10 students are chronically absent. Prior to the pandemic, polls showed that a majority of California voters supported school-choice vouchers, especially for low-income children. With skyrocketing dissatisfaction with the public schools, one can virtually guarantee that support for school choice is even higher today. The massive rise in homeschooling in California is an indication that more California parents want greater education options for their children.”
School board races in California will also be on the ballot in the Nov. 8 general election.
The unions have long opposed school choice, Izumi noted, and that makes it unlikely the state legislature will work to pass school choice measures here.
“With the current Democrat supermajority in the Legislature, I do not see any realistic efforts by legislators to pass meaningful school-choice legislation,” Izumi said. “Unfortunately, the anti-school-choice California Teachers Association remains the biggest education powerhouse in the Capitol. The CTA retains an iron grip on top elected officials, including Governor Gavin Newsom, who was endorsed by the CTA in his initial election and who received substantial CTA assistance to fight his recall last year. Even though the odds are daunting, however, pro-school-choice legislators should still introduce bills to give parents greater education options for their children because doing so would both rally parents and would force anti-choice legislators to show that their true loyalties are to their special-interest puppet masters rather than to parents.”
But now, the result of the Superintendent of Public Instruction race should impact the narrative on school choice here.
“There could not be a starker contrast between two candidates than between incumbent State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and his challenger, education policy expert Lance Christensen,” Izumi said. “Tony Thurmond was the hand-picked choice of the California Teachers Association when he was elected state schools’ chief in 2018 and the union spent millions of dollars on his behalf in the 2022 primary election campaign. Because Thurmond has spent his time carrying water for the union’s priorities, rather than listening to the needs of parents, there is high dissatisfaction with him among the electorate. For a CTA-supported incumbent like Thurmond to get only 46% of the vote demonstrates that lots of California voters have lost confidence in his ability to lead during the current education crisis in the state.
“In contrast, Christensen is up front in his support for school choice, with his campaign website stating unequivocally that he supports allowing a wide range of options for education opportunities where the money follows the student. Such a stance today, especially in the midst of the massive discontent among parents, could be a potent campaign weapon against a status quo incumbent who is seen as a mere extension of the teacher unions. While the CTA will spend a ton on this race, polling shows that California voters have the least positive view of teacher unions, so the CTA’s support may actually backfire on Thurmond. In other words, school choice could be a winning issue for Christensen."
Izumi stressed the SCOTUS decision in Carson v. Makin only opens the door to wider school choice in states that have no school-choice funding program.
“The Supreme Court says that public funding can follow a child to a private religious school; it is up to lawmakers to create programs that allow that funding to do so,” Izumi said. “If they fail to do so, then Californians always have recourse to a ballot initiative.”