Choice and competition are two of the hallmarks of the American economy. When stores compete, customers win. Turns out this is also true for schools. That’s an inviolable law of economics. A corollary is that monopolies tend to put customers last.

This is all happening at a time when public monopoly schools are showing flat or negative performance despite more funding than ever before.

This is one reason why so many states are turning to the new model of school choice, with public funds going to scholarships and charter schools, and tax incentives for charitable donations to private and Catholic schools.

About 23 mostly red states are experimenting with such programs, and so far the results in test scores and parental satisfaction are mostly positive.

Today about 1.5 million kids are taking advantage of these programs. In Florida, the biggest program of all, with more than 1 million kids enrolled in these school choice voucher programs, the kids are racking up better test scores than their peers in the public schools. This is incentivizing public schools to up THEIR game.

But no one has been more of a disappointment than Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, whose 2027 budget would slash $500 million from charter schools and gut education tax credits.

This could put 30,000 kids at risk of losing their scholarships. Already there are about 70,000 kids who want to go to a private school, but the scholarship money isn’t available because of program caps.

Why the barriers to these educational opportunities?

Florida’s public charter sector maintains an aggregate grade of “A,” outperforming traditional public school counterparts in 55 of 77 metrics.

What is sad is that even with a robust school choice program, probably two of three kids will still be enrolled in public schools for the foreseeable future. But with alternatives, school boards, teachers and principals will have to prove their value to the customers – the parents.

Even worse is that kids already attending charter, Catholic or special ed schools may have to return to the very classrooms that didn’t work for them in the first place.

It used to be that unions could claim to parents that alternative schools would be worse for their children. But that’s proven not to be the case for these new private choice schools. I know firsthand that in private schools, kids are challenged, disciplined and taught to learn that failure is not an option.

The Trump tax cuts will allow potentially millions of disadvantaged kids to get scholarships from tax filers who put money in the schools. It costs the states nothing to allow kids into the program.