Alabama Enacts Universal School Choice

​While the political momentum behind school choice in Texas accelerates, Alabama just became the eleventh state to embrace universal school choice.
 
Alabamians will soon be able to create Educational Savings Accounts that will apply $7,000 in tax credits per student toward private-school tuition or other educational expenses. This program, aimed first at low-income families with a $100 million a year contribution from the state, will soon expand availability to all Alabama families. Universal school choice programs like this one give parents a powerful way to exercise their First Amendment rights by expressing their values across generations.
 
Alabama’s turn to school choice is also a heartening sign for Texas, which has long struggled over passing a universal school voucher program. The Alabama Legislature, like that of Texas, had recently allowed school choice to die. This turnabout in Montgomery, Alabama, shows that the desire for school choice by families is too strong to be resisted by a few holdouts in Austin, Texas. At least 9 of those holdouts in Texas lost their seats in the recent Republican primary election. That election, Gov. Greg Abbott declared, is an “unmistakable message from parents.”
 
Here's to seeing the Lone Star State – the second-most populous in the nation – become number twelve in the universal school choice movement.