At last count, more than one and a half million children now benefit from school choice programs across the Unites States. With 75 programs in 34 states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, more than half of America’s K-12 students are eligible to participate in an educational choice program if they choose.

That number is set to rise. Last week, the Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA) program opened its application process. On February 4, the parents of more than 42,000 students applied, breaking Tennessee’s record of 33,000 first-day applications for its school choice program in 2025.

When the Texas legislature created TEFA, it was the largest school choice program at the time of its inception in the country. The legislation funded Education Savings Accounts for an initial 90,000 students, with a total of one billion dollars. Each student account will be valued at $10,000 or more, depending on individual circumstances. Funds can be used for private school tuition, tutoring, transportation, special needs therapies, and other education-related expenses. Eighty percent of first-day applicants indicated they intend to use the funds to attend private schools, and 20 percent plan to choose other options.

Last year, new educational choice programs launched in seven states: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Tennessee. Now Texas is giving record numbers of children access to learning environments in which they have better opportunities to reach their potential. Oregon education policies should expand options for students here, too, so all children can have an effective, meaningful, and empowering school experience.

In 2011, Portland Public Schools adopted a dual-enrollment policy allowing students in Jefferson High School boundaries to choose from one of three area high schools.

Of the twenty-four hundred high schoolers inside its boundaries, about two-thousand have opted for alternatives, leaving Jefferson with only 391 students this year.

The Portland school board is pouring enormous amounts of money into Jefferson which receives more operating dollars per student than any other local high school because of its higher percentage of Black students – about 40 percent -- and is about to start building a 1,700-seat school for Jefferson students at a half-billion dollars -- one of the most expensive schools ever built in America.

Despite such extravagant spending, Jefferson students have routinely ranked highest in absenteeism and lowest in academic scores among local high schools.

Sadly, the district fails to understand the social determinants of academic achievement. In their decades-long effort to close the achievement gap between Black and White students, Board members are focused on bureaucratic solutions such as money, facilities, class size, and racial composition.

But academic excellence is primarily driven by human factors beyond the district’s control -- such as family structure, parental oversight, student effort, and peer influence.

In the hopes of filling the new Jefferson high school building, Superintendent Armstrong called on the board to end dual enrollment in September 2027. While many families expressed concern about losing school choice, their voice was never heard at the January 13 meeting. The board had already decided -- if families would not choose Jefferson, then the district would conscript them.

Chances are this decision will backfire, as enrollment is forecasted to drop fifteen percent by 2035 and ending school choices will accelerate that trend.

Parents always have options—whether the district offers them or not. They won’t be held hostage to attend a school that doesn’t meet their student’s needs.

Open enrollment policies are growing rapidly nationwide and 23 states now have them. PPS could be part of that movement, and the Board should consider expanding dual enrollment for all students in the district. Not only would this empower more families, it would bring market forces into the district to help schools maintain or increase enrollment.

Mike Tomlin, coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers for 19 years, was asked about a star player missing due to a contract dispute. He quipped, “We’re looking for volunteers, not hostages.”

Portland Schools are making a $500 million bet that filling Jefferson High with hostages will be a winning strategy. Without school choices, the odds don’t look favorable.

On December 30th, Chief Petitioners plunked down the last pile of signatures on the Secretary of State’s desk. It was a slam dunk for the Oregon System.

In a record-breaking 40-ish days, a quarter-million Oregon voters lined up in every county to sign the “Stop the Gas Tax” petition and refer Governor Kotek’s $4.3 billion transportation tax to the November ballot.

These voters participated in the “Oregon System,” a form of direct democracy passed in 1902 and giving voters the right to challenge legislation in a veto referendum. Since then, Oregon voters have repealed 42 laws.

Oregon Freedom Coalition’s Nick Stark told Cascade there were nearly enough signatures to even qualify for a constitutional referendum.

The record-breaking signature drive signaled legislators that Oregon’s voters are up for any challenge—especially the legislative session beginning in February.

No sooner had Stark spoken, when Governor Kotek called for lawmakers to “redirect, repeal, and rebuild” the transportation bill, admitting that “thousands of Oregonians across the state have made their point.”

As designed, the Oregon System earned the Governor’s attention.

So what’s next? The Bill’s Chief Petitioners say a full repeal isn’t the best answer as it would gut the good parts, re-institute tolling, and halt the audit of ODOT.

In any case, the Governor and her supermajority are back where they started one year ago, unable to govern and unable to carry out the state’s most basic functions: to maintain roads and bridges—the stuff all of us need and care about.

Two things—a lack of imagination in spending solutions and a narrow fixation on collecting more taxes—make up a mindset where nothing can be done unless voters pay more for less—more for gas taxes, more for fees, more for dying transit, and more for fewer roads and fewer lanes for cars.

While New York’s socialist mayor touts the “warmth of collectivist action” — taxpayers in Oregon were nearly condemned to the cold gulag of blistering tax increases and service decreases. That is, until a quarter-million voters decided to light a fire, ignited by the spark of individual freedom.