The latest EdNext Poll shows rising support for all types of school choice. Most notably, it highlights the clear bipartisan support behind education freedom policies.
Just released on Tuesday, the poll shows growing public support for both tuition vouchers and tax credits. Roughly 58% of the general public is in favor of using tax credits to fund private school scholarships, up 5 percentage points since 2016. Support for empowering low-income families with vouchers also jumped 12% since 2016, to 49%.
Additionally, charter schools regained public support, with 48% of the general public in favor.
Importantly, both tax-credit scholarships and charter schools enjoy bipartisan support — though you would never know it based on the opposition expressed by most candidates in Democratic president debates.
Yet, 65% of Republicans and 56% of Democrats support tax-credit scholarships. Similarly, 61% of Republicans support charter schools, as do 40% of Democrats. When the question is tweaked to tell participants the demographic data of charter school attendees, which tends to include many minority students, support among Democrats climbs to 43%.
None of this is shocking. Many charter school attendees and tax-credit scholarship recipients are low-income children of color, whose parents largely vote Democrat. So why wouldn’t these voters support school choice? Yet the Democratic candidates who are supposed to represent these voters can’t seem to get the picture — likely due to who is filling their pockets on the campaign trail.
Though Sen. Elizabeth Warren declines “PAC money of any kind” for her presidential campaign, she has routinely accepted donations from teachers’ unions such as the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association during Senate campaigns. A top recipient of NEA funds in the 2018 cycle, Warren attended a forum they organized earlier this year, alongside other candidates.
Money aside, “The EdNext poll should serve as a wakeup call to 2020 Democratic candidates,” National Alliance for Public Charter Schools President and CEO Nina Rees said in a statement. “Today’s results are a powerful reminder that parents vote with their feet, and support for charter schools is growing.”
A powerful reminder indeed. Let’s just hope the Democratic candidates hear it before Election Day.
Kate Hardiman is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential blog. She taught high school in Chicago for two years while earning her M.Ed. and is now a J.D. candidate at Georgetown University Law Center.
