Indiana’s Universal School Voucher System Spotlighted: ALEC in Indiana Capital Chronicle

Casey Smith of the Indiana Capital Chronicle recently covered an education panel at ALEC’s 52^nd Annual Meeting, where state leaders explored Indiana’s trailblazing universal school voucher program and its national implications.

Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston framed the state’s universal school voucher system as both a policy success and a model for expanding “educational freedom” across the country while speaking before a national gathering of conservative lawmakers on Wednesday.

Huston, a Republican from Fishers, gave keynote remarks during a session on “school choice” at the American Legislative Exchange Council’s annual meeting in Indianapolis. He was joined by EdChoice CEO Robert Enlow, West Virginia Sen. Patricia Rucker, and Idaho Sen. Ben Toews.

The panel highlighted the ways states are implementing or expanding voucher programs and similar education policies that inject public dollars into private and charter schools, as well as other non-public or non-traditional settings.

ALEC, a national conservative policy group known for crafting model legislation on a variety of issues, has for years backed policies that build out universal or near-universal education choice programs.

Huston detailed how Indiana’s Choice Scholarship voucher program — first approved by state lawmakers in 2011 — gradually expanded until becoming “basically universal” in 2023. Earlier this year, the General Assembly removed the final income cap to open voucher eligibility to all Hoosier families. He said the Choice program, along with Education and Career Savings Accounts, has given parents a greater say in their kids’ schooling and created a stronger public education system, overall. Those programs, he added, are rooted in the belief that money should follow the student — not be locked into systems that may not serve them well.

“It’s empowered parents to choose the right education system for their kids,” Huston said during the panel. “The existing system has let a whole bunch of people down for a long time,” he continued. “We should be empowering [students] and getting them to the outcome we want, which is either getting prepared to go to a two- or four-year college, or making sure they have a credential in a field that can sustain them.”

He said the Choice program, along with Education and Career Savings Accounts, has given parents a greater say in their kids’ schooling and created a stronger public education system, overall.

Those programs, he added, are rooted in the belief that money should follow the student — not be locked into systems that may not serve them well.

Read the full article here.