Virginia Delegates All Want Improved Education Outcomes, but Not School Choice

The Virginia General Assembly. (Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

Virginia is trying to join the nearly dozen states that have implemented school choice programs to allow taxpayer funds to follow the families via education savings accounts by allowing parents to use an annual fund for the education package of their choice, with the ultimate goal being to improve students’ education outcomes.

At the start of 2023, Virginia’s Republican Del. Glenn Davis filed school choice legislation, House Bill 1508 to create the Virginia Education Account Program. This bill would permit parents to use their taxpayer dollars to set up a savings account for their child’s education, that could be used to pay for alternative educational experiences, including private school tuition.

The government-authorized accounts, known as education savings accounts (ESA), would be available to parents of any Virginia child enrolled in a public school for at least six months. Families would be able to spend an average of $6,000 on tuition, fees, and required textbooks at private K–12 schools or use them for homeschooling expenses.

According to Davis, competition benefits all students, those choosing public schools and those using the ESAs as an alternative. “Our goal should be to improve the educational outcomes for all students,” Davis said via a phone interview with The Epoch Times. This bill begins to do that.

Davis expects his party to support the proposal but isn’t banking on Virginia Democrats who have criticized Davis’s bill, saying it will cause greater learning loss for students. Virginia’s Democratic state senator Creigh Deeds believes school choice will cause funding shortfalls for public schools.

“To translate: What they’re proposing is to defund public schools,” Deeds posted on Twitter on Jan. 5, along with a video of Davis holding a press conference about school choice.

The Virginia state legislature is gearing up for its legislative session this week and Davis expects his bill to garner support from the majority of Republicans by next week, especially since the most recent national academic scores are showing historic lows.

Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show decreases in math and reading scores for American fourth and eighth graders, which shows students need higher quality education choices, advocates for school choice say.

Lt. Governor Winsome Earle-Sears said it is false to say school choice doesn’t support all students, because it gives parents private, public, and homeschool options. “We’re not falling for that anymore,” said Earle-Sears during a Jan. 5 press conference. “What we know is we cannot keep doing the same thing, expecting different results.”

Virginia Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears and Virginia Republican Attorney General candidate Jason Miyares look on as Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin speaks at a campaign rally at the Loudon County Fairground in Leesburg, Va., on Nov. 1, 2021. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

While Earle-Sears believes that introducing healthy competition in the school system will improve the quality of education for all Virginia students, Democrats disagree.

“Instead, tax dollars will go to the wealthy, to unaccountable schools with lower standards, and to businesses that pop up with programs of dubious educational value (because money can go to more than tuition). Let’s invest in our kids, our communities, and the middle class instead,” Virginia Democrat Del. Schuyler Van Valkenburg said in a criticism against Davis’ school choice bill via a Jan. 5 Twitter post.

Meanwhile, Corey DeAngelis, senior fellow of the American Federation for Children and a leading advocate for school choice, said via an email to The Epoch Times: The money in the public school system is for education not for supporting the system.

“We should fund students, not systems,” DeAngelis added. “Virginia House Bill 1508 would fund students directly and empower families to choose the education providers that best meet their needs and align with their values.”

DeAngelis said a supermajority supports school choice and Virginia Democrats should listen to their constituents and support the school choice bill.

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“If the Virginia Democrats are smart, they will preempt that strategy by voting in favor of school choice this session. At least some high-profile Democrats are already reading the tea leaves in other states. Pennsylvania Governor-elect Josh Shapiro, for example, changed his education platform to include education savings accounts—similar to Virginia’s HB 1508—right before the 2022 election. If Virginia Democrats follow suit and support families with school choice, they will be able to erode the Virginia GOP’s ability to remain the Parents’ Party,” DeAngelis said.