Winners, Losers, and School Choice Implementation

E.E. Schattschneider rides again

Created by u/assainXD1 on Reddit

It’s often said that the best defense is a good offense. Unfortunately, that adage runs in opposition to how humans operate politically. The school choice movement has had a very successful few years, and it’s natural to want to defend what you’ve created. But over-emphasizing protection can backfire, killing the momentum we have built over the last few years.

Everyone’s problem

There’s an old political concept called the “scope of conflict,” developed by Elmer Eric Schattschneider in his 1960 classic The Semi-Sovereign People. Groups that are "losing" in politics (meaning they haven't yet achieved their preferred policies) tend to expand their conflict by gathering more allies. To win these allies, they need to make their fight relevant to potential partners – often by showing how sympathetic figures are harmed by the status quo or how villains exploit it. In short, to start winning a political battle, movements build compassion or anger by demonstrating how people others care about are affected by the system they want to change.

(The details depend greatly on the political narratives of the allies you’re trying to reach. I’m far from the only person to analyze how narratives shape policy advocacy, but I’ve covered the relationship between political narratives and school choice specifically in “The Three Languages of School Choice,” and you can read more there.)

To use one example, Milton Friedman made the case for school choice for libertarians and fiscal conservatives by appealing to individualist approaches to public policy and the efficiencies of free choice. For all this approach offers, it did not lead to political success on its own. Not until progressive political leaders were convinced that school choice was a way to empower disenfranchised children did the first voucher program pass in Milwaukee.

From then on, it proved easier to win more allies by demonstrating there were children in need rather than a more arcane discussion about efficiency and rights. So, through the years, advocates have assembled stories about kids who were suffering in their assigned school, and the most sympathetic figures were those who were disenfranchised in some way. First it was kids in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Milwaukee and Cleveland. Focus expanded from kids assigned to low-performing schools to any disadvantaged kid without means to find a different educational option. Then focus expanded to students with disabilities. Then foster kids and military kids got included. Then students who were being bullied.

These stories slowly built a case that there were lots of suffering children, steadily arguing that the education system had a systemic problem that required a sweeping policy solution. Through this messaging, the movement expanded the scope of who exactly the status quo hurt, thereby building more support.

The pandemic was a tipping point, accomplishing in months what advocates had been working toward for decades – it made the need for educational alternatives personally relevant to millions of families. Not all these needs were the same. Some wanted to pursue schools that re-opened sooner. Some wanted schools with mandatory masking, some wanted the opposite. Some had concerns about curriculum, others chaotic classrooms, and some became aware of racial abuse their children experienced in their school. For all these reasons, the early 2020s proved to be a tipping point. School choice was winning.

Fighting back

Up until recently, choice opponents were winning. According to Schattschneider, maintaining a winning position is best achieved through minimizing the scope of conflict. That is why folks like Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, frequently stated that 90 percent of K-12 children attended public schools, concluding that the public’s attention should be directed toward supporting the institutions that most children attend. She was trying to minimize the scope of conflict by shrinking the number of people who might have an issue with public schools, at least in the eyes of the public. The most effective strategy for the anti-choice crowd wasn't to argue why school choice wouldn't improve education – it was to persuade the public that improvement wasn't needed.

Once anti-choice groups started losing, messaging had to shift. School choice no longer could be dismissed – it had to become a threat to the public interest. One strategy they’ve utilized revolves around money. Shortly after taking office, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs insisted that the Arizona’s program would “bankrupt” the state, implying that the size of the program was large enough to be a threat to the greater Arizona K-12 budget. This rhetoric expands the scope of conflict to all Arizona taxpayers. A second strategy revolves around demographics. That's why there's been such emphasis on how many students in expanded programs were already in private schools – it's a proxy for affluence. If school choice programs fund people who are not sympathetic figures, that can foster public anger against the program.

Always be losing

My main takeaway from viewing the school choice fight through Schattschneider’s lenses is that the school choice movement is at risk of falling into the same cycle countless other political groups have fallen into.

We can see this in terms of program transparency. Florida was a national leader in clear and consistent data reporting prior to expanding its ESA program. Now, Florida publicly reports significantly fewer data and based on the experiences of ourselves and our partners, the state is much less responsive in cooperating with researchers and answering data questions. Florida is hardly alone. As we detailed in a blog post last year, many expansive school choice programs don’t report or don’t collect various important data.

Anecdotally, I’ve found many advocates’ focus on participant demographics has shifted from proving what choice can do for underserved children to defending against claims that programs only serve the wealthy. This defensive posture threatens to undermine the very transparency and accountability that choice advocates championed to create these programs in the first place. Rather than arguing about whether certain demographic representation or program efficiency is “good enough,” it’s much more fruitful to be motivated by the concerns that won us this fight in the first place – making sure that all students have access to alternative education experiences regardless of their socioeconomic status. We should be investigating whether there are barriers keeping universal choice programs from reflecting their state populations. Are there information gaps? Transportation challenges? Administrative hurdles?

Our goal isn't just winning political battles – we win when all kids can access the education they need. That means bridging information gaps, developing new educational options, and running programs effectively. We’re successful when kids have access to the educational options they need. And we need data to know where we’re succeeding and falling short so we can improve our efforts.

If you’ve been in the school choice fight a long time, you might be very protective of the victories you’ve worked so hard for. But now you know that, just like other political winners before you, there will be pressure to play defense, to minimize the scope of school choice policies in the public eye. I’d encourage you to keep the mentality that got you here, to use the momentum that’s built to make sure that the legislative victories lead to something that will change lives.