Democratic Debate Over Private School Choice Reveals Post-Election Tensions

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For 11 years, Jennifer Walmer led Democrats for Education Reform Colorado, the state
chapter of the national organization that advocates for school choice.
Among the biggest wins of her tenure, she counts increases in charter funding and twice electing Democrat and school reformer Gov. Jared Polis as governor. After serving as chief of staff for the Denver Public Schools, she fully expected to finish her career at DFER.
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'We worked hard to build power in the Democratic Party specifically around accountability, choice and the role of public charter schools,' she said. 'Everything had always been grounded 100% in public education.'
But last year, she said she 'saw the writing on the wall' when the organization's leader embraced Education Savings Accounts and other forms of private school choice. She is among several who have since left the group over the issue.
In a May 5 policy paper, DFER CEO Jorge Elorza, former two-term mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, suggested that instead of 'rejecting them offhand,' his party should explore how ESAs can advance Democratic values like uplifting needy families and protecting civil rights. Eighteen Republican-led states now have such programs, which parents can use for private school tuition or homeschooling. Most Democrats say vouchers and ESAs lack accountability and threaten funding for public schools.
To Alisha Searcy, who joined DFER just last year, Elorza's about-face felt like a betrayal.
'DFER has done extraordinary work to get courageous Democrats elected to push bold policies that would truly improve public education,' said the former Georgia state legislator. She was hired last year to expand the organization's reach into her state, Alabama and Tennessee, but resigned in May. 'We need a strong Democratic voice, now more than ever. This move to embrace vouchers and ESAs is the exact opposite.'
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The issue has brought bubbling to the surface a debate that was previously restricted to Democratic backrooms. Elorza took the helm of DFER at a time when polls began to show that voters were losing confidence in Democrats as the party they most trusted on education. Parents, the surveys suggested, were more preoccupied with whether their kids were recovering from pandemic learning loss than how schools were teaching issues of race or gender in the classroom. The soul searching only intensified in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's election.
Founded in 2007, DFER always advocated for wider public school options. Leaders worked with the Obama administration and reform-minded Democrats to support policies like magnet schools, dual enrollment and lifting state caps on charter schools. Now, Republicans and their push for parental rights are dominating the education conversation, including a recent proposal to enact a national tax credit for private school choice. Elorza is among those who say the party needs to be open to more options for families if it's going to regain its edge with voters, especially parents. But he recognizes the risks.
'There are a lot of Democrats who are choice curious,' he told The 74. 'They'll say privately that they're open to the idea of choice, including private school choice, but that the politics of it are just so darn challenging.'
In a recent op-ed, he pointed to Pennsylvania as the best opportunity for a swing state to pass an ESA program. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro came close to supporting such a bill in 2023.
Some observers say Shapiro and Elorza are outliers in the party. During the Obama years, DFER 'nudged' the party toward school reform policies like merit pay for teachers and maintaining strong assessment systems, said David Houston, an assistant education professor at George Mason University in Virginia. But now it's 'further from the center of Democratic politics.'
The recent departure of other DFER staff offers further evidence that Elorza's position doesn't reflect the Democratic mainstream.
Will Andras served as political director in Colorado for Education Reform Now, a think tank affiliated with DFER that Elorza also leads. Andras left last year, shortly after DFER joined the No More Lines Coalition, a group of organizations that advocate for open enrollment and removing school attendance boundaries.
The member organizations, funded largely by the conservative Koch network, also support vouchers and ESAs. In his resignation letter, Andras referenced the change in direction since Elorza came on board in 2023.
'The last six months have shown that the organization I have devoted a substantial portion of my professional career to help build no longer aligns with my political or personal values,' he wrote.
Jessica Giles, who led the D.C. chapter, posted similar words when she walked away in May. It's one of several chapters to close since Elorza became CEO. The Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts and DFER South chapters have also shut down.
Elorza said he respects their stance.
'There are a lot of folks who put a great deal of stock into this public-private distinction, and I think it comes from a principled place,' he said. 'But I truly believe that it is in the party's political best interest to be open minded to any approach that moves the needle for kids and families.'
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Backed by far-right billionaires, the private school choice movement has been on a winning streak since 2022, when Arizona passed the first universal ESA. 'The political winds are shifting,' Corey DeAngelis, a self-described 'school choice evangelist' and fellow at multiple think tanks, said at a conference in Atlanta in April. 'If Democrats are smart, they'll stop the Republicans from being able to pick up the football and win on this issue.'
He pointed to Louisiana, where six House Democrats — one-fifth of the party's caucus — voted last year for the LA GATOR Scholarship, an ESA that starts this fall. One of them, Rep. Jason Hughes, passionately defended his vote on the House floor.
'As I watch children in poverty, trapped in failing schools, who can hardly read, I'll be damned if I will continue to defend the status quo,' he said.
Rep. Marlene Terry, a Missouri Democrat, delivered an equally heartfelt speech in May after caucus leaders took away her committee assignments when she supported a $50 million increase to the state's ESA program.
'I will vote how I please, when I please and where I please,' she said. 'No one can take away my voice. I will not be silent.'
While her own children attended public school, she said families in the St. Louis-area district she represents are frustrated that their schools have lacked full accreditation for 15 years.
'That's a long time for families to wait for improvement,' Terry told The 74. Riverview Gardens, a majority Black, high-poverty district, regained local control from the state in 2023, but leaders are still working to make continued gains in attendance and teacher retention. 'That's why I support giving families a range of high-quality public options, including public charter schools, and — when absolutely necessary — scholarships to attend other schools if no viable public options exist.'
Some Democrats agree with Elorza that the party shouldn't distance legislators like Terry. In a recent blog, Virginia Board of Education Member Andy Rotherham, who served in the Clinton White House and co-founded Bellwether, a think tank, said Democrats need to welcome 'a much wider range of perspectives on these questions,' given school choice's surge in popularity since the pandemic.
'This is America — we like choice,' he wrote. 'Being on the wrong side of that culturally and politically is not a great place to be.'
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Using an ESA can be particularly uncomfortable for a lifelong Democrat — especially In Arizona, where Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has called the program a 'billion dollar boondoggle' and wants to set income caps on families using it. Kathy Visser, who administers a ESA Facebook group for parents and vendors, knows some who left the forum because they felt that it was 'not a safe space for Democrats.'
'I hate election time because it's always a mess in the group,' she said. 'People think we should be able to talk about ESAs without talking about politics, but when you've got one party so solidly entrenched against it, it's really hard.'
Some Democrats who use ESAs say they hold their noses when it comes to other aspects of the Republican agenda.
Christina Foster, whose daughter has used an ESA in the past, said she gets 'heart palpitations' when she has to decide on a candidate. She's board chair for Arizona's Black Mothers Forum, which runs microschools serving students using ESAs, and wants to protect the program. But in the 2024 election, she voted for Democrats.
'Some of those Republicans were not supportive of minority rights, immigration rights, women's rights. Those are very important to me,' she said. 'I said 'OK, unfortunately, I'm going to have to vote against the ESA.'
For those within the traditional K-12 system, the choice to use an ESA can be tricky. As a kindergarten teacher in Arizona's Peoria district, Melanie Ford is familiar with anti-ESA talking points about how the program undermines funding for traditional schools and is susceptible to waste and fraud.
But she overlooked those arguments when public school no longer seemed like a safe place for her transgender son Ash. He avoided using the bathroom all day because students said he didn't belong in the boys' or the girls' restroom.
For the 2023-24 school year, Ash used an ESA to attend the Queer Blended Learning Center, a microschool for middle schoolers in Phoenix that incorporates LGBTQ history into the curriculum. Ford told her colleagues that despite her support of public schools, she had to think first about her son. Ash has since returned to a public high school, where he plays on a drumline in the marching band and has straight A's, his mother said. But using the ESA allowed him to transition in a more supportive setting.
'He didn't have to deal with the comments from peers that slowly rip a person apart from the inside out,' she said. 'He could grow into himself without judgement from others and this was so important for his mental health.'
While some Democrats, as Elorza suggested, may think an ESA is the best option for their children, that interest hasn't risen to the national level. No Congressional Democrats, for example, have endorsed the federal Educational Choice for Children Act, the tax credit scholarship program tucked into the Republicans' reconciliation bill.
In some states, vouchers remain unpopular, said Joshua Cowen, an education professor at Michigan State University and a strong opponent of directing public funds to private schools.
He points to Kentucky, where 65% of voters rejected a private school choice measure last November. Coloradans also defeated a school choice-related proposition, and voters in Nebraska repealed a voucher program.
While the Democratic party may embrace vouchers in the future, that day is a long way off, said Ravi Gupta, a former Obama staffer who runs a nonprofit media company. On an intellectual level, he's intrigued by ESAs. Democrats, he said, would never say Medicaid should only be used at a public hospital or Section 8 vouchers only in a housing project, so why doesn't the same principle apply to education?
'Twenty years from now, do I think that could be the reality?' he asked. 'I think it's very likely, but it will take some time.'
Disclosure: The Charles Koch Foundation funds Stand Together Trust, which provides funding to The 74. Andy Rotherham sits on The 74's board of directors.