School Choice Is A Game of Inches

Vince Lombardi said, “Football is a game of inches, and inches makes champions”. The same logic applies to politics, you can move many inches in an extended period of time. Maybe the South moves slower than the rest of the country, but my home state of Georgia moved miles with regards to school choice.

In 2008, the Georgia State legislature passed a Qualified Education Expense (QEE) Tax Credit. This bill, HB 1133, institutes tax credits for individuals and corporations who donate to Student Scholarship Organizations—nonprofits that grant scholarships that allow families to choose alternatives to public schooling. All students currently enrolled in public Pre-K, Kindergarten, and first grade can enroll, but beginning in the second grade, students need to attend public school for at least six weeks. The original bill set the annual contribution cap at $58M which heavily reduced the number of potential students. In 2018 the legislature passed HB 217 which increased the annual contribution cap of the QEE tax credit to $100M. The passage of HB 217 resulted in over 16,000 students receiving a scholarship in 2019, compared to less than 14,000 in 2018. The advocates who helped shepherd this bill improved the educational options for over 2,000 Georgian kids.

Although Covid-19 devastated society, it forced us to rethink our education systems. In 2021, 18 states passed bills increasing educational freedom by creating 7 new programs and expanding 21 existing programs. According to Education Next, those political victories could result in approximately 1.6 million students attending the school of their choice. For comparison, approximately 600,000 students participated in a school choice program in the previous year. Georgia contributed to the amazing 2021 legislative success by passing three bills which expanded and protected existing programs. SB 47 expanded the eligibility of the Special Needs Scholarship to all students on 504 disability plans, HB 606 updates the list of accrediting agencies for the HOPE Scholarship to include the Georgia Independent School Association (an organization led by private, parochial, and independent schools), and SB 246 protected learning pods from the burden of crushing regulation. The advocates of these three bills admirably promoted educational freedom in Georgia.

So far in 2022, 27 states have introduced legislation intended to increase educational freedom. Thanks to the powerful slogan “funding students, not systems“, Georgia will consider a bipartisan bill to establish Educational Saving Accounts (ESA). HB 999 (Georgia Educational Freedom Act) gives Georgian parents of public school children the option of leaving public school and receiving a $6,000 scholarship for their child’s educational expenses. The Georgia Public Policy Foundation partnered with Corey DeAngelis to study the economic benefit of introducing ESA’s to 5% of Georgian students. They estimated a 5% usage rate of ESA’s will lead to $1.7B in increased earnings for students, $1B in economic benefit from increasing the number of children graduating high school, and $13M in savings from decreases in crime.

While I agree with many of the flaws in the bill expressed by the Libertarian Party of Georgia, HB 999 moves the ball forward. On February 22, 2022, the Georgia chapter of America For Prosperity will hold a rally at the capital in support of the bill, which I plan on attending. The AJC Legislative Navigator currently gives HB 999 a 26% chance of passing. Because of the hard work put in by the liberty movement, I’ll take those odds.