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Political debates in education often boil down to which type of schools and education initiatives should receive public funding – and how much of it they should receive. These conversations sometimes expose a level of hypocrisy that is hard to ignore.

For example, a bill was filed this year in the Indiana General Assembly that put forth a novel concept: allow local communities to raise property taxes via a referendum to pay for universal pre-kindergarten. These property tax funds would pay for pre-K programming in settings such as churches, community-based organizations, district schools, charter schools, and private schools.

State Rep. Blake Johnson, an Indianapolis Democrat, authored the legislation. Voucher-like early childhood education programs that use public money to fund schools of all types – including private, religious schools – are widely popular with Democrats in states like Indiana and elsewhere. Ironically, the mechanisms in these programs would make the late conservative economist Milton Friedman smile.

While HB 1622 did not receive a hearing this year in the GOP-controlled Indiana House of Representatives, it raises an interesting question. What if something like this was proposed for K-12 schools? Well, it turns out there’s an answer to that.

Another piece of legislation this session in Indiana calls for property taxes to be shared with public charter schools (not religious or private schools). That bill has garnered support from Republicans and is working its way through the legislative process. Democrats, in contrast to their support of similar efforts for pre-K, have assailed SB 518 as an attack on public education even though charters are public schools. They’ve called it reckless, a stalking horse, and an unprecedented destabilization.

They have argued, often in hyperbolic terms, that property tax dollars shouldn’t be shared with schools that lack elected boards, ignoring that if their argument was consistently applied they would be advocating for the abolition of publicly funded libraries, hospitals, and universities. They were so upset by the bill that every Democratic senator present for the floor debate voted for an amendment that would “dissolve” and “terminate” 70% of charter schools in Indiana, leading to the closure of dozens of public schools in largely Democratic Senate districts. That amendment failed on a party-line vote.

The inconsistencies don’t stop at K-12. There is bipartisan political support for the Federal Pell Grant program, which provides critical scholarships to undergraduate students from low-income backgrounds to attend public or private higher education institutions. Just last year, Congressional Democrats proposed doubling the size of this program, which is largely indistinguishable from a means-tested voucher program. 

Currently, Congressional Democrats are also pushing back on the Trump administration’s efforts to cut National Institutes of Health funding, which disproportionately goes to private research universities to conduct important research.

This raises the question: Why is it okay to use public funding for private or nonprofit early childhood and higher education providers, but it’s suddenly the end of democracy when similar mechanisms are used in K-12?

Ashley Berner, Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, eloquently makes the case that “educational pluralism” is countercultural to the United States’ K-12 education system. She argues that in America, even the term “school choice” assumes that the traditional school district is the default education provider. She also points out that U.S. schools were standardized, in part, to uphold traditional Protestant beliefs in publicly funded “nonsectarian” district schools even as the number of Catholics and immigrants continued to grow.

I visited Sweden, certainly not a bastion of U.S.-style conservatism, several years ago to learn more about education systems in other countries. I was surprised to learn that the Swedish education system provides public funding to schools of all types. What we call a “school district” in our country has no meaning in Sweden. There are municipal schools and independent schools, all of which receive public funding. In fact, once you study education globally, you quickly learn that the U.S. is an outlier when it comes to educational pluralism.

There is also another, more straightforward, answer. Teachers’ unions. 

In terms of political power, few advocacy initiatives hold a candle to teachers’ unions. Where are these unions most powerful and active? K-12. Where are they less active and powerful? Early childhood and higher education.

I’ve talked to elected officials who explained to me that the most important day of the year is when they learn how large the union’s political donation will be. Many have told me privately that they support K-12 school choice, but they could never vote for it because it would lead to a union-funded primary opponent. In other words, voting for increased schooling options for children is political suicide. 

Interestingly, this reality doesn’t exist at nearly the same level for local elected officials in Indianapolis, as the last two Democratic mayors and the majority of the Democratic-controlled City Council consistently support charter schools. Why the difference? Perhaps it’s because the teachers’ unions largely stay out of local races, allowing elected officials to vote with their conscience.

To be clear, I’m not anti-union. I’ve seen the value of unions first-hand. Growing up, my father had a blue-collar union job that afforded my family a middle-class life. But kids aren’t widgets and don’t have an organized political force advocating for their interests. 

This dynamic is certainly not confined to Democrats. Both parties are attached to various special interest groups that make it politically difficult to prioritize sound policy over political expediency.

All of this speaks to the need for much more robust local, state, and federal political advocacy strategies to move toward an educational system that values diverse schooling preferences. It also speaks to the power of entrenched customs and political interests in our country that ought to be questioned every once in a while in a nation as large and diverse as ours. 

The next time you see a politician advocating for publicly funded educational pluralism for 4-year-olds, ask them if they support a similar approach for 5-year-olds. Their answer will be telling.

Disclosure: The Mind Trust provides financial support to The 74.

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