The eat-your-vegetables stuff is out.
What’s in? The sugar-frosted stuff: teacher pay, forgiving loans, reducing the cost of college, CTE, and money for early childhood are pretty much all upsides for elected officials (except when bills eventually come due).
Now, there are two big items on the GOP “in” list where things get more complicated. One is the “science of reading.” Fueled both by practical frustrations and conservative antipathy to “whole language” progressivism, this may be the closest thing you’ll find in 2024 to Bush-Obama wonkery—even if it’s been partly fueled by culture-clash ire. (The politics of reading are fascinating, so let’s set this aside for another time.)
Then there’s school choice. Politically, the great thing about school choice is that it gives families the freedom to decide what kind of education is best for their children. This has immediate, visible benefits for families. But the political challenge is that any adverse consequences are immediate, too, allowing critics to point to lost enrollment and budgetary impacts. Moreover, some worry that choice will upend familiar, comfortable arrangements, especially in suburban and rural communities. These complicating factors are why the appeal of choice tends to vary with state context, program design, and sales pitch.