Voters rejected multiple school choice measures in 2024 election

Multiple efforts that supported giving parents public funds to spend on private or alternative schools fared poorly in the 2024 election.
Voters rejected separate proposals in Colorado and Kentucky aiming to add language supporting school choice, an issue that has divided parents and school staffers across the nation for years, to their states’ constitutions.
And voters in Nebraska chose to repeal a $10 million school voucher program passed by its state legislature earlier this year, which aimed to help private school families with state funding.
School choice supporters argue that families should have the right to choose what schools their kids attend, and that state funds should be used to defray costs for some families who opt out of public schools. Opponents say that school vouchers, education saving accounts and other school choice programs hurt public schools and the kids who attend them. They argue that public schools need all the funding they can get.
Kentucky Amendment 2:Fails in 2024 election
The results reflect a national rural and urban divide on school choice, said Deven Carlson, a professor and associate director of education at the University of Oklahoma’s Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis.
Republicans in rural states have historically opposed school vouchers and other choice programs, Carlson said. Conservatives who live in more urban areas, on the other hand, are more likely to support the movement because they have more access to private or other alternative schools, Carlson said.
The measures likely failed because voters in Kentucky and Nebraska rely heavily on the success of public school systems.
“Across the whole landscape of choice programs, the programs are successful legislatively in red states, but there’s a contrast when they’re put to the voters,” he said. “This was consistent with rural state voters’ qualms with voucher programs … they’re not going to see benefits from the programs.”
Teachers unions in both states vehemently opposed the measures, which may have swayed some voters in the margins, Carlson said.
After the measure failed in Kentucky on Tuesday, Eddie Campbell, president of the Kentucky Education Association, called the result a “victory” at an Election Night party, according to the Louisville Courier Journal, part of theUSA TODAY Network. Tim Royers, president of the Nebraska State Education Association, told the nonprofit news outlet Nebraska Examiner that voters from both sides of the political aisle rejected the possibility of a school voucher or scholarship program.
The culprit for Colorado’s measure could be the way the state swings politically, Carlson said. Voters in blue states are less likely to support choice programs than those in red states, he said.
School choice is on the ballotIn these 3 states in 2024 election
Despite voter opposition to choice programs in Colorado, Kentucky and Nebraska, the movement has had success in recent years. At least 29 states and the District of Columbia already have some form of school choice language in their laws, according to an Education Week analysis.
Texas could be the next state to pass a school choice program despite previous opposition from rural Texans, Carlson said, because Gov. Greg Abbott now has enough support in the state House to pass a school choice program.
“School choice is wanted by all demographic groups in the state of Texas,” said Governor Abbott in a written statement Wednesday. “Hispanics and African Americans in the state of Texas, they strongly support school choice. Those parents want an option. They know their child better than any government employee does, and they want to put their child on the pathway toward success.”
Contributing: Hannah Pinksi, Louisville Courier Journal
Contact Kayla Jimenez at [email protected]. Follow her on X at @kaylajjimenez.