Recently, I heard a representative of Alabama Policy Institute advocating for Blueprint 2026 regarding the CHOOSE Act on WLRH, the public radio station that formerly hosted NPR. Andrea Alvarez, Huntsville City School Board and I are willing to discuss this topic with them.
The Alabama Policy Institute’s Blueprint 2026 has a table of contents with three subheadings: Free Markets, Limited Government and Strong Families.“Full funding for Alabama’s Universal School Choice Program” is listed first under Free Markets. Page 4 under “Eligibility and Priorities” states regarding the CHOOSE Act, “Starting in 2027-2028, the program becomes universal and income limits disappear though awards continue to prioritize lower- income families and those already participating.”
“Becomes universal and income limits disappear” means that Alabama’s wealthiest families will be eligible for public CHOOSE Act funding for their elite private schools no matter how high their income. Currently, there is only a mild income cap of 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Starting in the 2027-2028 school year this mild restriction will disappear, and lawmakers have yet to define the income parameters for that year. The CHOOSE Act diverted $180 million from public schools in the first year and is projected to cost $530 million over 3 years.
Questions for API: Why advocate for no income cap if you are prioritizing “lower-income” families? Also, why not use the term “low-income families” instead of “lower-income families”? Isn’t it true that universal school choice program means no income caps, not universal school choice for all families in Alabama?
How can access to school choice in Alabama be expanded to all AL families when so many of them don’t have access to private schools based on economic, geographical, religious and identity reasons. Doesn’t what we learned about supply and demand in Economics 101 explain why it is naive to believe that the free market is coming to help low-income and rural students by building more quality private schools? Because of the law of supply and demand, won’t private school tuition increase as the demand for private schools increases while the supply of private schools remains the same, especially since private schools market themselves for their exclusivity?
Families economically knocked out of universal school choice.
Low-income families in all 67 counties who can’t bridge the price gap between the $7,000 allowance and the average price of AL private school tuition, which is $10,657 for elementary students and $11,607 for high school students.
How can Alabama lawmakers justify funding private education when we are failing at adequately funding public schools? The Education Law Center’s, ELC, 2025 report assigned a “D” to AL for its per pupil funding in relation to the national average. The ELC also gave AL an “F” for the lack of equitable funding distribution, particularly in high poverty areas compared to low poverty areas.” Imagine the progress toward an “A” rating if lawmakers consider increasing funding for public schools and repealing the CHOOSE Act? Furthermore, in all 67 counties, numerous private schools chose NOT to be Education Service Providers in the CHOOSE Act. Maybe the lawmakers meant school choice for the private schools.
Families geographically knocked out of school choice.
Some counties have no supply of private schools since the free market determined that families in these counties are priced out of their market and can’t make them a profit.
Some rural students have zero geographical access. According to a search of AL private schools in the National Center for Education Statistics, several AL rural counties have ZERO private schools including Cleburne, Coosa, Franklin, Geneva, Green, Lamar and Washington County. Functionally, these rural students still have no choice between public and private school.
Families knocked out of school choice for geographic, religious and possibly identity reasons.
Rural counties that have only ONE private school and that are 100 percent religious are Bullock, Chilton, Conecuh, Covington, Crenshaw, Henry, Lawrence, Lowndes, Marion, Monroe, Perry, Randolph and Sumter. Only two rural counties that have only one private school were non- faith based schools: Butler and Pickens. Private schools can also decide not to accept LGBTQ students and students with disabilities.
So which counties have a good supply of private schools? Naturally, our urban and suburban counties: Jefferson, Shelby, Madison, Baldwin, Mobile and Montgomery Counties. According to the Learning Policy Institute’s “Distribution of Public and Private Schools: Alabama,” 81.2 percent of private schools in AL are in urban or suburban areas.” Private schools in cities include: Birmingham, 81, Mobile, 51, Huntsville 35, Montgomery 32 and Dothan 14. Browsing through https://www.privateschoolreview.com/alabama, if you want your child to go to an elite or at least highly accredited non-religious school you must be in one of the above mentioned counties. For example, of the popular 16 Montessori Schools in AL, 14 of them are distributed between Huntsville, Birmingham and surrounding area, Montgomery and Mobile with the two exceptions being in Florence and Dothan.
API claims that universal school choice programs don’t harm public schools. The Economic Policy Institute has done multiple studies and disagrees. Please read these articles. How do you refute their methodology and evidence? In their article, “Vouchers undermine efforts to provide an excellent public education for all,” they write, “Vouchers make no coherent economic sense, and the evidence shows that vouchers harm student achievement and expose state budgets to large future obligations that are hard to forecast, even while they divert spending away from public education.” The article also offers several examples of devastating school voucher programs in multiple states that have long standing programs.
Please read, “How vouchers harm public schools: Calculating the cost of voucher programs of public schools.” Furthermore, the underlying assumption that private schools offer a better education than public schools is not supported by the research.
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor.”
