As Jason Bedrick, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation's Center for Education Policy, recently told AFN, the GOP has for the first time explicitly endorsed universal school choice.
"For a long time, the Republican Party has embraced school choice," he noted. "But in years past, on previous GOP party platforms, they've done it in more general terms. The one that we've seen … the Republican Party really embracing is the education savings account, which is the type of policy that gives families the greatest degree of freedom and flexibility to customize their child's education."
But according to the new platform, every single child who is eligible to be in a K-12 school should also qualify for some type of school choice policy.
11 Republican-led states currently have universal school choice policies on the books. The researcher thinks the movement really started during the height of COVID, when families started thinking outside the box as they searched for other education options.
Instead of the outdated system where children are assigned to a school based on where they live, he says parents started to realize they should be choosing the learning environment that works best for their kids and aligns with their values. And the money should follow the child to that learning environment.
This issue, Bedrick says, is becoming a litmus test for Republican primary voters. And with the party now taking such a strong stance on it, he expects to see more states moving to pass universal school choice.
