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.