Texas, Iowa, Georgia brace for new education fights under Democratic governors

The trajectory of education policy in a trio of historically red states is about to see a major shakeup after voters there elected Democratic governors for the first time in decades.

For years, positions on school choice, LGBTQ topics in classrooms and efforts either for or against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have expanded cultural divides between blue and red states, and now, with Democrats taking charge over a wider map, battles will be brewing in state legislatures.

That’s particularly true in Texas, Georgia, Iowa, where for years Republicans have held the governors’ mansions and backed policies that have expanded school choice , restricted books in classrooms, led to courses axed from universities and added Bible lessons to K-12 curriculum.

The governors in these states won’t have free rein, facing divided statehouses and GOP lawmakers firmly opposed to their plans, but the power to appoint individuals to state positions, veto bills and drive the legislative agenda will give huge advantages to the Democratic education platform.

While Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic governor-elect in Texas, has said little about DEI in classrooms, for example, she has regularly criticized the state’s school choice program as a giveaway to private schools. Hinojosa says she is committed to “end the voucher scam” after Gov. Greg Abbott (R) spent years fighting for government-funded accounts that students can use to leave their local public school.

While Republicans still control the Texas Senate, Hinojosa will have line-item veto power that she could use to attempt to defund the program, even if she can’t end it completely without legislative support.

And the fight could begin before she’s even sworn in.

Corey DeAngelis, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said Abbott could call a special session before he leaves office “to protect school choice.”

“The current Republican Legislature can pass a bill in special session to move the program into the state school funding formula instead. That change would largely eliminate the ability to kill it with a line-item veto,” DeAngelis said.

Hinojosa will also have the ability to appoint members to Texas higher education oversight board, although her choices would need to get through a Republican Texas Senate.

But the new leadership brings hope for those who have been concerned about the decline of academic freedom in Texas.

“We’re hopeful because the folks who did get elected were folks who were very supportive of our students’ learning ability, our students’ learning, and I think this is going to be good for them,” said Teresa L. Klein, president of the American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers Texas Conference. “We want to see academic freedom recognized and shared governance restored; those are things that we’ll be surely discussing with all the legislators.”

In Iowa, restrictions on LGBTQ books in schools and a universal school choice program have angered liberals who failed in court to reverse the book ban.

Unlike in Texas, Rob Sand, the Democratic governor-elect in Iowa, ran a platform to reform the state’s school choice program instead of wiping it out.

He also emphasized increased public funding and universal pre-K.

“Interestingly, in each of those states, the Democrats did not tote the traditional party line, which was to be against school choice, including they weren’t against private school choice, either. They did, in various forms, raise concerns about their state’s choice programs, but it was more in terms of how do we tweak them to better align with our values and to advance our priorities than entirely do away with it,” said Jorge Elorza, CEO of Democrats for Education Reform.

Under GOP leadership, Georgia has focused on banning “divisive concepts” in classrooms and passing a Parental Bill of Rights that allows reviews of instructional materials by parents.

Democratic Governor-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms has so far largely stayed out of the school choice conversation and focused on free universal community college, pre-K and expanding financial literacy.

She also said she would support “eliminating state income taxes for teachers.”

In an interview in 2022 when Bottoms was mayor of Atlanta, she told VOX ATL , “To not allow educators to have open discussions in their classrooms does a disservice to students across our state and can have generational repercussions because they didn’t have the benefit of understanding the racial dynamics of who we are.”

“I think we can expect Governor Elect Bottoms in Georgia to adopt more progressive measures to enhance the education funding to fully support schools. I also think that she’s ran on issues around supporting teachers … so we might see additional measures at the state level to increase teacher salaries or to provide more incentives to attract and retain high quality or high impact teachers,” said Weadé James, senior director for K-12 Education Policy at the Center for American Progress.