FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Numbers Don’t Lie: The CHOOSE Act is Empowering Alabama’s Families
For decades, the Alabama Policy Institute has championed a simple, powerful idea: every child in Alabama deserves a high-quality education, regardless of their zip code or their size of their parents’ bank account. With the passage and implementation of the CHOOSE Act, that vision is finally becoming a reality.
Predictably, as the program’s incredible success for families is documented, critics have emerged to regurgitate tired rhetoric on behalf of those attempting to protect their benefits and/or their turf. They claim the program is a handout for the wealthy or that it will exacerbate racial divisions. However, a look at the actual data and the structure of the law itself tells a very different story. The CHOOSE Act is working exactly as intended: as a reflection of the Alabama student population and as a ladder of opportunity for those who need it most.
Let’s begin with the wealthy families myth. Critics often ignore the fact that the CHOOSE Act was intentionally built with a needs-first structure. During the first two years of the program, there is a strict income cap. Only families earning at or below 300% of the federal poverty level are eligible. For a family of four, that is approximately $93,600. Wealthy families are legally barred from participating but that hasn’t stopped critics from erroneously proclaiming that the program is a handout for the wealthy. Further, when you look closer at the current participants of the CHOOSE Act you see that 67% of the families utilizing the program this school year are actually closer to the bottom of the already limited income bracket – not the top.
The law mandates a tiered prioritization system. The Alabama Department of Revenue is required by law to move the lowest-income families to the front of the line. We aren’t just giving lip service saying we want to help those that need it the most first; the law literally demands it.
Some members of the media have pointed to the fact that nearly half of the initial recipients were already enrolled in private schools as evidence of an unnecessary handout. This argument misses the twenty percent of families using the CHOOSE Act to homeschool, disregards the thousands of special needs kids in the program, and is a fundamental misunderstanding of the struggle thousands of Alabama families face when trying to find the right place to educate their children; some families have parents working two jobs and making immense personal sacrifices to keep their children out of schools that aren’t safe or just aren’t the right fit for them.
Then, there is the oft recycled racial argument. Some have recently suggested that school choice is being used as a tool for exclusion; the data says otherwise. As the program has rolled out, the demographic breakdown of applicants has closely mirrored the diversity of Alabama student population. K-12 Student Racial Breakdown: White: ~51%, Black/African American: ~32%, Hispanic/Latino: ~12%, Other ~ 2%. The CHOOSE Act applicant pool tracked closely along those lines. There are now kids in every single county and every single legislative district utilizing school choice programs in Alabama.
The CHOOSE Act has been a monumental shift toward educational freedom for our state. By maintaining a demographic profile that reflects our student population and prioritizing those who need the program the most first, the CHOOSE Act is proving that school choice programs aren’t a private club, but an opportunity that honors the dignity of every parent and the potential of every child. It’s time to stop fighting over systems and start focusing on students. The numbers are in, and they show that the CHOOSE Act is a big win for all kinds of families in Alabama.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, contact:
Alabama Policy Institute
205-870-9900 or admin@alabamapolicy.org
