The head of the nation’s largest school choice advocacy group is warning that Democratic efforts to dismantle existing universal school choice programs could produce a backlash at the ballot box in 2028.
Tommy Schultz, CEO of the American Federation for Children, told Fox News Digital that families who have benefited from school choice programs are unlikely to accept having those options taken away without a political fight.
“Put yourself into the shoes of a lower-income mother who is a single parent. She has two or three kids that now just got access into a great private school or a great homeschooling environment that she couldn’t afford otherwise without a state program like in Texas, and suddenly, the new wave of people that maybe she even voted for is saying, ‘I want to take those options away from your kid immediately and put them back into the school that they’ve hated,'” Schultz said. “They’re going to become a single-issue voter in 2028 and vote you out of office.”
“I think a lot of these folks that just won office need to be really careful with trying to threaten taking away a family from an educational setting that their kids are thriving in that they’re loving, that they’re feeling safe in,” he added. “That’s fundamentally what’s at issue here.”
Democratic Gains Put Choice Programs in Question
Schultz’s warning follows recent midterm election gains by Democrats that have put Republican-backed school choice and parental rights laws into question across several states, including Texas, Iowa, Georgia and Nevada.
In Texas, Democratic Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa has signaled she intends to reverse the state’s school choice expansion once she takes office.
“It is a victory for the parents of Texas. We are taking our children’s education back from a government that has failed them,” Hinojosa said in her victory speech. “Schools will not be taken out of our control, shuttered or suffocated. Being a parent is hard enough without carrying the burdens of a government’s failures. To the children of Texas: Your schools will not close.”
Hinojosa also pledged aggressive personnel changes, saying, “On day one, I will fire [Texas Education Agency Commissioner] Mike Morath, and we will work tirelessly to repair the damage of the Texas voucher scam, and end an era in which our schools are sold for parts.”
Hinojosa did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment for the original story.
Enrollment Declines Complicate the Debate
The dispute comes as big-city public school districts across the country grapple with declining enrollment as families seek alternatives to neighborhood schools. In Texas, the Houston Independent School District board voted unanimously to close 12 campuses, citing falling enrollment numbers.
A Movement Schultz Says Could Turn Combative
Schultz predicted that any rollback of school choice laws could reignite the kind of grassroots parental activism seen at school board meetings since the COVID-19 pandemic, when disputes over curricula and classroom content drew national attention.
“If you’re going to take away something from parents that they’re really loving—like especially something as emotional as the school that your kid is going to—they’re going to get quite angry,” Schultz said. “That’s where you’ve seen these movements, in Florida, where these parents rose up against candidates or even court cases where they tried to take hundreds of thousands of kids out of the schools they loved and put ’em back in the schools that they hated. They became single-issue voters.”
Schultz pointed to Florida’s 2018 gubernatorial race as an example of the political power of school choice voters, crediting them with helping tip the race to Republican Ron DeSantis. Parental rights platforms have also been cited as a factor in the campaigns of former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
“If you look at the headlines from that 2018 race with Governor Ron DeSantis, the school choice moms tipped the Florida race for him,” Schultz said. “That’s the type of thing we’re talking about that could happen to a lot of these candidates who maybe won on affordability, but they won maybe on small margins, particularly in these state legislative races.”
Schultz’s message to newly elected Democrats was blunt: “Don’t overread your mandate to suddenly say, ‘I want to wipe out a really popular program with parents.'”
Conservative organizations including the Virginia-based American Principles Project and the 1776 Project PAC have expanded their involvement in local school board races since 2022, funding campaigns on issues such as curriculum content and classroom policy, and are expected to remain active as the fight over school choice continues into 2028.
