Democratic platform claims school choice uses tax dollars to ‘discriminate’

The Democrats' 2024 election platform claims that school choice initiatives use tax dollars to "discriminate" despite the fact that school choice proponents say expanding options helps children escape failing schools .

Democratic Party members ratified their 2024 platform on Monday in Chicago, where their nominating convention for president is taking place. The education portions of the master plan show fealty to teachers unions, a drive to force the Biden administration's controversial Title IX overhaul, and a push for gender ideology in schools.

“This is just meaningless word salad that conveniently ignores the destructive policies of the Biden-Harris-Cardona education platform American families have suffered through over the past four years," Michele Exner, senior adviser at Parents Defending Education, told the Washington Examiner. "They partnered with teachers unions to keep schools closed for months, prioritized radical policies over the education of children, are attempting to force anti-girl policies in federally funded schools nationwide, and have done little to nothing to counter learning loss their own policies created. Not to mention, their wasteful government spending did little, if anything, to help schools but did cause inflation which continues to crush families.”

The party's platform was ratified in Chicago, a city run by Democrats and where tax dollars pay a staggering $27,000 per student and very few students are testing at grade proficiency for reading or math.

Democrats are standing firmly against school choice, saying they "oppose the use of private school vouchers, tuition tax credits, opportunity scholarships," and other forms of school choice because the party argues that "public tax dollars should never be used to discriminate."

Efforts against school choice are backed heavily by teachers unions, whose members in underperforming school districts stand to be negatively affected by parents removing their children in search of higher-performing schools.

School choice initiatives have become increasingly popular with parents, many of whom opposed the gender ideology and critical race theory they observed public schools teaching their children starting during the remote learning of the pandemic.

In what appears to be another boon for the teachers unions, the Democratic platform mentions the billions of dollars pumped into public schools via the American Rescue Plan, which funded an underwhelming level of academic recovery . That money did, however, go toward funding left-wing ideologies in K-12 classrooms, as well as nonacademic expenses such as gymnasium updates.

Teachers unions and Democrats appear poised to maintain the outsize public school funding rather than go back to pre-pandemic levels. With the money running out in September, critics expect Democrats to claim that not maintaining emergency funding levels will mean schools are losing funding.

Despite supporting many of the pandemic-related disruptions, Democrats also touted their push to hire 14,000 new counselors and social workers "so kids can heal from the disruptions of COVID, and cope with the fear of gun violence in order to focus on learning."

Democrats also seek to make universal pre-K "free," meaning paid for with tax dollars, as well as trade school and community college, saying in their platform, "Four year college is not the only pathway to a good career, so Democrats are investing in other forms of education as well, including career and technical education."

The platform likewise doubles down on the Biden administration's multiple attempts at student loan transfer schemes, where the payment of loans for elite college degrees would be paid for by taxpayers who may not have even gone to college themselves. The Supreme Court already struck down one attempt at the transfer scheme, and the second attempt is being scrutinized by the courts.

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Democrats also vow to maintain the Biden administration's controversial overhaul of Title IX, which redefined sex to include claims of transgender identity, which critics say will shut down private spaces for girls and boys to be separate, such as locker rooms and restrooms. The platform says Democrats want "explicit protections for LGBTQI+ students" under Title IX.

That overhaul has been blocked by lower courts in numerous states that represent over half the country, which were all recently affirmed by the Supreme Court as litigation continues.