Conservatives support school choice. However, rural elected officials, many of whom are also conservative, generally do not.

There’s an inherent conflict in this that partly explains why the broad issue of education reform has made some progress in Texas in recent years but the narrower issue of school choice has not.

School choice offers a fundamental question: Should there be competition in public education? The only serious answer to that question is “yes.”

Asked another way, who would oppose competition? The answer is the opponents of school choice, who are generally made up of liberals, school districts, teachers’ unions and some rural Republicans who do not believe school choice options currently exist in rural areas.

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