Opponents, including teachers unions, educators and Democrats, have pushed back, arguing that such policies would siphon students and money away from public schools.ĭeVos left her role as chairman of the American Federation for Children when she joined the Trump administration, but she remains one of its largest financial backers. “We’re doing a lot of winning - I’m almost getting tired of winning so much because we’re winning all across the country,” Corey DeAngelis, a senior fellow at the federation, said in a Twitter Space on Sunday.ĭeVos and other conservatives have long advocated for financially supporting families who want to move their children from public schools to private ones, calling these policies “school choice,” and arguing that they would help poor children get a better education. In Iowa and Arkansas, where the organization’s PAC put money into ousting incumbent Republicans who had resisted past proposals to subsidize private education, GOP governors signed sweeping legislation this winter to offer money for school tuition for every child in their states.Īnd in Texas, where the American Federation for Children’s PAC spent $1 million during last year’s election cycle, and in Georgia, where it spent $380,000, bills recently advanced in the GOP-controlled legislatures to create programs to fund private schooling. Ron DeSantis signed a law Monday that will allow more families to receive public funds to pay for private education, regardless of their financial need. In Florida, where the American Federation for Children’s state political action committee spent $1.7 million during last year’s elections, Gov.
But the federation’s spending preceded a marked increase in both the scale of private school subsidies on the table at the state level and the rate at which the laws have been enacted. Each state’s political landscape is unique and subject to myriad factors. It’s difficult to determine whether the laws would have been enacted without the American Federation for Children’s involvement other groups supporting the same “school choice” policies also targeted lawmakers with campaign ads last year. They just had to take out a few marginal incumbents, and thereby put the fear of God into the rest of them.”
“They’ve particularly targeted rural Republicans who are opposed to school choice. “They’ve been quite strategic,” Patrick Wolf, an education policy professor at the University of Arkansas, said of the group. It is now on the verge of ushering in a transformation in how large swaths of the country fund schools.
The nonprofit group has found success amid a 20-year low in approval for the K-12 education system and after two years of protests over lessons involving race and LGBTQ identity.
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