Despite the fact that Alabama Retirement Systems (RSA) CEO David Bronner’s role has absolutely nothing to do with education, he recently used his newsletter to lecture parents about the “extremist” idea of wanting a portion of their taxes to pay for the education of their children. His assertion sounds a bit like Merrick Garland calling soccer moms who dare attend school board meetings terrorists. The entire point of Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) programs is to allow tax dollars to follow students to whichever school their parents choose to send them. However, Bronner described ESAs as the state allocating funding to students (not true) or allowing it to be pocketed by parents who homeschool (also not true).
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey and Alabama Lt. Governor Will Ainsworth have given public support to universal school choice and ESAs. That’s good news for Alabama and Alabama students. While state spending on education has increased by over 82% in the last ten years, student scores just aren’t improving. Something’s got to give.
In 2019, Alabama was infamously “dead last” in public school math scores, ranking 52 out of 52 government run school systems. While the state no longer has the dubious distinction of being the last of the last, NAEP scores continue to show that very little progress is being made. In fact, NAEP eighth-grade math scores are the exact same as they were in 2000, 23 years ago, and eighth- grade reading NAEP scores are four points lower than they were in 1998, 25 years ago. If you measure by proficiency rates, the scores don’t fare better: the most recent results for the 2022-2023 school year show 49.46 percent proficiency in English, 29.94 percent in math, and 38.54 percent in science. (RELATED: KEVIN MOONEY: This Democrat Governor Could Defy The Teachers Unions And Pass School Choice)
In 2023 alone, a total of 19 states have taken steps to broaden school choice policies, giving families greater freedom to choose the educational path that best suits their children’s needs. ESA legislation passed in Utah, Florida, Arkansas, South Carolina, Indiana, Iowa, West Virginia, Arizona, and Montana in recent years, yet Bronner called ESAs “an extreme version of school choice” and (mis) assigned an astronomical annual price tag from thin air. Bronner asserted, “If the Legislature creates education savings accounts, the Education Trust Fund could see a decline of over $1 billion in revenue annually.” API is not sure where Bronner got his figure, but last year’s PRICE Act program was (over) estimated to cost half that amount with every single current private school child and 5% of current public school students opting into the program. No other state has seen that participation rate, much less participation that would cost Alabama $1 billion in taxes annually. Further, last year’s negotiated legislation was capped at $50 million annually in committee.
Bronner finished his diatribe with this statement: “If we truly care about the future of public education in Alabama and truly care about Alabama’s children in a state that has the lowest taxes in America, then we should think before we leap into the unknown.” That’s also peculiar, as school choice programs have been around for 150 years in the US, and Alabama didn’t even make the top ten list of the lowest tax burden states in recent analysis reported on by NPR and cited in Forbes. (RELATED: MANDY DROGIN: It’s Time For This Massive Red State To Get School Choice Over The Finish Line)
API agrees that we should all be concerned about the education of children in our state. That’s exactly why API has taken the lead in the area of school choice for decades. Parents should choose what’s best for their kids – not Montgomery bureaucrats.
Stephanie Holden Smith is the president and CEO of the Alabama Policy Institute.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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