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The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word ‘campaign’ as: a connected series of operations designed to bring about a particular result. There is no definition of how many of those operations it might take to achieve a goal. Such is the case of school choice in Virginia.
In 2012, after years of trying to convince legislators to follow the lead of states like Florida, Arizona and Nevada to offer ‘money-follows-the-child’ voucher programs (Nevada has since reversed their voucher program), Virginia created the Education Improvement Scholarship Tax Credit to help generate tax-advantaged contributions to a state managed program where approved students could use the scholarship to pay to attend a school of their choice. Not the same, but a step in the campaign.
In 2021, with the election of Winsome Earle-Sears as Lieutenant Governor, the school choice movement had a vocal proponent who teamed up with the Virginia Education Opportunity Alliance to bring real choice to the legislators, with the political upside of Conservative Republicans being the heroes in the low-income inner-city neighborhoods. That effort was done in by rural representatives whose constituents didn’t have many choices in their sparsely populated counties.
Now, with the advent of Micro-Schools and Co-operative schools, as we detailed in a previous column, perhaps now is the time. The Heritage Foundation partnered with Fabrizio and Lee to conduct a focus group of likely voters to see their feelings on education, choice and the role of the parents. We talked with Jonathan Butcher of the Heritage Foundation about the results.
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Rob Bluey