In December, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis made waves by his intention to opt his state into the program, becoming the first Democrat to do so and setting the stage for his Democratic peers. Three other Democratic governors — Tina Kotek of Oregon, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico and Tony Evers of Wisconsin — have that they won’t opt in. 

So the question remains: Will most Democrats stay the course and reject federal support for school choice? Or will they follow Polis’s example, bucking the traditional party line? How they proceed may have profound impacts on Democrats’ electoral chances this year.

As approved by Congress last summer, the program allows donors to receive a $1,700 federal tax credit for money given to organizations providing scholarships for private school tuition, tutoring and other education costs for families whose annual income is at or below 300 percent of their area’s median income. The Internal Revenue Service is currently drafting guidance for administering the tax credit, and states are evaluating whether to participate.

In addition to Polis, have either opted in or declared their plans to do so. One Democrat, North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, vetoed an opt-in bill but said he expects to sign up after he reviews the IRS rules.

Jorge Elorza, CEO of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) and former mayor of Providence, has been pushing Democratic governors to opt into the program. This is part of a marked change in DFER’s positioning on private school choice, which Elorza casts as a turn in the right direction for a party that has, according to DFER’s , lost its lead with voters on education. For Democrats concerned about being out of touch with the majority of voters on school choice, this decision represents a “lifeline,” he told me. “It is a convenient off ramp so that we can not only talk about K–12 education policy in a new way, but also take an important step in the direction of choice.”

The main argument he uses to get them on board, he said, is that “if a state does not opt in, then by default, the first $1,700 in every single federal taxpayer’s taxes is going to leave your state.” Because it’s a federal tax credit, Californians are every bit as eligible to donate as Floridians. But because states have to opt in, California’s children aren’t eligible to receive scholarships unless Gov. Gavin Newsom or the state legislature decides to participate. Elorza believes the decision for Democrats is a “no brainer.”

John Schilling, a school choice advocate, offered another argument: “it’s all additive.” Because it’s a tax credit, “it is adding K-12 resources, which are going directly to parents and students. It does not affect what the federal government or what state governments provide for K–12 education.” And since the law allows public school students to benefit from the scholarships, tutoring or afterschool activities, Schilling sees little reason why Democratic governors wouldn’t opt in. He too called it a “no-brainer.”

Not everyone agrees. Thomas Toch, the director of the Georgetown University think tank FutureEd, argues the decision to opt in could be “very problematic” for governors, especially if they can’t target scholarships to students from low-income families or provide much oversight of private schools. Because there are so many unanswered questions, Toch hopes governors will “wait until they understand in detail what the parameters of the program will be” before they opt in or out, which won’t be until the IRS releases its rules later this year.

Another concern is a perennial one for school choice opponents: that private schools can discriminate against students, including LGBTQ kids. Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, said the tax credit is effectively a “backdoor voucher program” that states “actually have very little control over.” Democrats might be wary of opting into a program “where, for example, they can do very little to protect against some discriminatory behaviors.”

Such concerns are why Robert Enlow, president and CEO of the school choice research and advocacy organization EdChoice, believes governors in states on “the harder sort of left” — he mentioned California, Massachusetts and Connecticut — may choose not to opt in. Toch added: “In some states, especially where teacher unions are influential, there’s going to be a lot of pressure to just say no for no’s sake.”

Advocates argue that school choice, and particularly the scholarship tax credit, is popular. In September, DFER released showing that 64% of voters wanted their governor to opt into the program, including 61% of Democrats and 59% of Independents, with even stronger showings among Hispanic and Black voters. Enlow also pointed to done by EdChoice and Morning Consult showing that 65% of adults and 75% of school parents support tax-credit scholarship programs. With numbers like these, “opting in is not just popular, it is overwhelmingly popular,” DFER’s Elorza said.

Yet in 2024, voters in three states — Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska — pro-school choice ballot measures. Elorza chalks these defeats up to “coordinated campaigns that raise a parade of horribles that will materialize” if these measures are adopted. Coordinated campaigns or no, those ballot measure defeats are surely going to give fodder to opponents of the tax credit scholarship program.

For now, most Democratic governors seem for the IRS rules. As a spokesperson for Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro put it in an email: “The Shapiro Administration is awaiting federal guidance to address key questions about how this program would work, including which students will be eligible, how this federal initiative will interact with existing programs, and more. We look forward to reviewing that guidance.” The offices of the governors of Illinois, Michigan, California and Michigan did not respond to requests for comment.

Toch applauds the wait-and-see approach: “My argument is that the devil is in the details, and the political leaders in both parties should scrutinize the details carefully and not commit to a program unless it serves valuable public policy ends.”

The question for Democratic governors facing re-election is simple: After a decade of declining student achievement, will voters want a massive change in how education is delivered? Or will they prefer a more cautious approach that maintains stricter oversight?

The COVID pandemic — the topic that has dominated education conversations for the past three years — is largely missing from the State of the State addresses that governors are delivering to their legislatures this winter. 

Instead, state leaders are using their bully pulpits to call for bigger investments in early learning and in the transition into the workforce and college. They are supporting better pay for public school teachers while pushing for public money to flow to private schools, which could ultimately make it more difficult to fund public school pay increases. 

FutureEd speeches and partnered with The 74 to convert our analysis into a series of interactive maps. We found that despite the academic gaps exposed in last year’s National Assessment for Educational Progress scores, there was surprisingly little talk of learning loss and efforts to catch students up. There was also little explicit “culture war” rhetoric around teaching racial history or banning books — and more lofty talk about the value of education.

“Education is a great equalizer in our society,” said Democratic Gov. Janet Mills in her Feb. 14 address to the Maine legislature. “Every child, regardless of where they live, deserves a world-class education that will prepare them for a successful adulthood.”

Here are some of the topics trending among the nation’s governors this year:

(Click here if you are having trouble viewing maps)

Teaching Profession

The teaching profession was a top priority across party lines, with 24 governors discussing ways to improve pay and support educators. Most of those governors proposed raising salaries, largely in response to shortages in their states but also as a way to recognize the important role teachers play. 

In Kentucky, Democratic Gov. Andrew Beshear is supporting an across-the-board 5% pay hike, which he called “both vital and necessary to address Kentucky’s shortage of nearly 11,000 public school teachers.” Idaho Republican Gov. Brad Little also pledged to increase salaries — both for starting teachers and for all instructors — by an average of $6,300 annually because “students and their families deserve quality teachers who are respected and compensated competitively.”

South Carolina Republican Gov. Henry McMaster took a different approach, offering both salary increases and one-time $2,500 retention bonuses, paid out in two installments. Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin wants to provide retention bonuses as well as $50 million in performance-based compensations. Republican state leaders began supporting teacher pay hikes in response to against low pay in red states in the years before the pandemic — perhaps realizing that many rank-and-file teachers in their states are Republicans, even though teacher unions, favorite Republican political foils, lean left.

Governors also pitched additional strategies to address recruitment and retention challenges. Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore is pushing legislation to strengthen the teacher pipeline with loan forgiveness, fellowships and grow-your-own programs. Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is proposing grants to help paraprofessionals become teachers. Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo is adding $30 million to provide stipends and tuition for student teachers. And in Wisconsin, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers announced plans to invest more than $20 million in recruiting, developing, and retaining teachers and student teachers.

School Choice

Unlike the bipartisan support for teacher compensation, the school choice proposals in 15 State of the State addresses nearly all came from Republican governors. The only Democratic governor to broach the subject, Arizona’s Katie Hobbs, pledged to provide more accountability for a broad expansion of education savings accounts that her predecessor pushed through the legislature. “Any school that accepts taxpayer dollars should have to abide by the same accountability standards that all district schools do,” she said. 

Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds proposed, and has since signed, a measure that would provide nearly $8,000 in state funding to each family who sends their child to a private school — the same amount the state provides for each public school student. “Every parent should have a choice of where to send their child — and that choice shouldn’t be limited to families who can afford it,” she said. Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine proposed expanding eligibility for the state’s voucher program to include middle-class families. He also proposed increasing funding for charter schools.

Some governors emphasized the importance of parents in making educational decisions for their children, including Idaho’s Little, who plans to make permanent a grant program that helps families pay for such educational expenses as computers, instructional materials and tutoring.

While school choice programs open to all students, like those in Iowa and Arizona, are drawing much of the attention — and criticism — this year, governors in Nebraska and South Dakota have focused specifically on children in need, including those in foster care or living in poverty.

Curriculum and Instruction

With support for the “science of reading” sweeping the country, governors are responding with calls for explicit, evidence-based reading instruction. “The evidence is clear. The verdict is in. There is a great deal of research about how we learn to read. And today, we understand the great value and importance of phonics,” said Ohio’s DeWine, one of 11 governors who mentioned literacy in their speeches; altogether, 19 proposed some sort of curriculum initiatives or restrictions.

Some governors, such as Iowa’s Reynolds, are focusing on training teachers to implement reading initiatives. Youngkin called for extending the use of reading specialists under the Virginia Literacy Act to fifth grade.

In Wisconsin, Evers announced a $20 million investment to increase literacy programming and implement evidence-based reading practices. He, along with Youngkin and Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, also proposed investments in high-quality math curricula, training and support. 

In Nevada, Lombardo wants to reinstate a rule holding back students who aren’t reading proficiently, and Indiana Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb is proposing to reward schools that improve their third-grade reading results. 

This focus on literacy and academic initiatives marks a big shift from last year, when culture wars and critical race theory were prominent in the State of the State addresses. Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves is one of the exceptions, with comments on gender and sexuality. “There is no room in our schools for policies that attempt to undercut parents and require the usage of pronouns or names that fail to correspond with reality,” he said in proposing a Parents’ Bill of Rights requiring schools to “adhere to the will of the parents” on such matters.

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott framed his push for education savings accounts as a way to empower parents and to fight “woke agendas” and “indoctrination.” Likewise, West Virginia Republican Gov. Jim Justice voiced support for “parents’ rights” by directing school districts to make all curricula available online, “where we can see every single thing that’s being put into our little kids’ heads.”

In Illinois, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker spoke out against restricting what’s taught in schools, saying it undermines historic investments in education. “It’s all meaningless if we become a nation that bans books from school libraries about racism suffered by Roberto Clemente and Hank Aaron, and tells kids they can’t talk about being gay, and signals to Black and brown people and Asian Americans and Jews and Muslims that our authentic stories can’t be told,” he said.

Higher Education

College affordability emerged as a top priority among the 23 governors who mentioned higher education, but their proposed solutions differed across party lines. Governors from both parties called for expanded scholarship programs, but only Republicans — from South Carolina, Utah and Virginia — called for tuition freezes. GOP governors were also the only ones to mention repairing aging campus buildings, with proposed investments ranging from $65 million in Nevada to $275 million in Missouri. 

New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham touted her state’s program that provides free public higher education to all state residents, and Illinois’s Pritzker pledged another $100 million for scholarships helping to make community college free for eligible students. Others pushed for expanded scholarship programs: Arizona’s Hobbs is allocating $40 million to create the Promise for DREAMers Scholarship Program, while North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum is doubling his state’s investment in the Native American Scholarship program. Governors in other states, including Montana, Georgia and Hawaii, emphasized the need for expanded scholarships and programs to encourage students to become health care providers. 

Several governors proposed using these investments to encourage students to stay in their state for college and ideally, for their careers. Indiana’s Holcomb pitched a $184 million increase in higher education funding to reward universities “for keeping their graduates in careers in our state. After all, Indiana’s college campuses need to be the epicenters of brain gain — not brain drain!” Nebraska Republican Gov. Jim Pillen offered $39.4 million to fund over 4,200 scholarships for Nebraska students attending school in state.

Workforce Development

At least 29 governors across the political spectrum voiced support for improving students’ career readiness, including through apprenticeships and dual-enrollment programs. 

Virginia’s Youngkin hopes to accelerate dual-enrollment partnerships between high schools and community colleges so that eventually, “every child graduates with an industry recognized credential.” Kentucky’s Beshear announced a $245 million investment to renovate and rebuild career and technical centers in high schools. And Colorado’s Polis argued for career-connected learning in high school. 

Apprenticeships were a large focus, with Iowa’s Reynolds increasing funding for health care apprenticeships, Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Parson expanding apprenticeships in areas such as information technology and public safety, and Montana Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte doubling the Trades Education Credit. Wisconsin’s Evers is connecting apprenticeships to other initiatives, including through a $10 million investment in clean energy job training and reemployment.

Early Education

Even as Congress failed to fund early care and early education in , 20 governors from both parties made the early years a priority in their speeches. 

Pritzker announced a broad Smart Start Illinois plan to expand access to pre-K and child care, help build new facilities and ramp up home visiting programs for young families. While only Democratic governors — including those in Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and New Mexico — discussed the need for universal pre-K, several Republican governors also advocated for expanding early learning and child care options, particularly better access for kids from low-income families. For example, Missouri’s Parson is planning to invest $56 million to expand pre-K options for low-income children, and Nevada’s Lombardo is providing $60 million for similar efforts. 

Governors are also calling for bureaucratic changes: New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to make it easier for eligible parents to access child care assistance, saying, “Less than 10% of families who are eligible … are actually enrolled. This is the legacy of a system that is difficult to navigate — by design. That has to change.” Similarly, South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem said her state would work with providers to overhaul rules and regulations. 

Mental Health

Sixteen governors acknowledged the rise in  post-pandemic and the need to expand access to services, particularly for children and teens. Some focused specifically on school-based services, while others supported community-based approaches.

Several Democratic governors called for increasing the number of school counselors, psychologists and social workers, including Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who is proposing to expand Mental Health Intervention Teams in schools. In Wisconsin, Evers announced he is investing more than $270 million to allow every district to expand school-based mental health services.

Though largely a priority among Democrats, mental health also came up in a few Republican speeches: Missouri’s Parson proposed an additional $3.5 million for more youth behavioral-health liaisons, and Ohio’s DeWine hopes to address the shortage of pediatric behavioral-health professionals and facilities. 

While the culture wars and other divisive political issues continue to play out in schools and colleges, it is perhaps encouraging to see significant numbers of state leaders from both parties proposing pragmatic policy responses to teacher shortages, student mental health needs, low reading scores and other systemic challenges facing the nation’s educators.

Maps by The 74’s Meghan Gallagher

But that wasn’t the case in Loudoun County where former schools chief Scott Ziegler was indicted last week in a high-profile case in which a teen boy assaulted two female classmates months apart — with no warning to the greater school community after the first attack.

This time, it was Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, elected last year on a pledge to empower parents, who spearheaded the investigation into the district’s handling of the case: Acting on his state Attorney General Jason Miyares impaneled a special grand jury to investigate the school system’s alleged coverup and mishandling of the assaults. Its findings were released earlier this month in a .

Ziegler was fired after the grand jury found he lied to the public about the first incident, which took place in a girl’s bathroom. 

The location sparked outrage among those who believed the assault was tied to the district’s decision to allow students to use the bathroom of their choosing rather than the one that corresponds with their sex assigned at birth. The attacker was wearing a kilt at the time. Despite early rumors, he is not transgender and the bathroom policyuntil long after the first assault.

Both Ziegler and the district spokesperson were with the former superintendent facing multiple misdemeanors, including false publication, and his colleague, Wayde Byard, accused of felony perjury. Ziegler was also charged in connection with a special education teacher who said the district failed to take action after she complained of being and then retaliated against her for speaking out.

Ziegler, in a statement to The Washington Post last week, spoke about the grand jury investigation and said, “I am disappointed that an Attorney General-controlled, secret, and one-sided process — which never once sought my testimony — has made such false and irresponsible accusations. I will vigorously defend myself. I look forward to a time when the truth becomes public.”

Youngkin’s intervention, while unusual, is no surprise. Conservative parents in Loudoun County, riled by the district’s COVID policies, teachings about systemic racism and alleged sexualization of children through LGBTQ literature, have been among the most vocal in the country since the pandemic began. Youngkin capitalized on that during his campaign and came through with his promise to give parents statewide a greater say in the goings-on at their children’s school — starting with Loudoun County.

After the grand jury report was released, Youngkin addressed the backlash to his direct role in setting the investigation into motion.

“I do believe that part of my job as governor is to make the decisions to shine light on circumstances like this,” he told . “And at the end of the day, we were going to … make sure that the facts were clear, and that those that had, in fact, violated their duty would be held accountable. And that’s exactly what happened.”

The grand jury’s recounting of the case seemed to shed more light on the disturbing series of events than the political heat they generated.

The offender, just 14 years old at the time of the first attack on May 28, 2021, arranged to meet a classmate in the bathroom for a consensual encounter only to forcibly sodomize her. The victim’s father, who drove to campus soon after, was chastised by school officials for causing a ruckus at the front office. Administrators alerted parents to his behavior that day — not to the sexual assault. 

Even worse, parents said, school officials were warned more than two weeks earlier about the boy’s troubling behavior: A teaching assistant, writing to a superior at Stone Bridge High School about his infractions, ended with, “I wouldn’t want to be held accountable if someone should get hurt,” the grand jury found.

Parents were even more enraged by what came next: The boy was merely transferred to another school — rather than placed in a more secure setting — where he sexually assaulted and nearly asphyxiated another girl at his new campus on October 6, 2021.

The grand jury blamed the district for the second assault, attributing it to a “remarkable lack of curiosity” and “adherence to operating in silos.” Among the more surprising revelations: A special education teaching assistant walked into the bathroom during the first assault, saw two sets of feet in one of the stalls and did nothing about it.

The report also noted a June 22, 2021, school board meeting in which the superintendent said, in response to a question, “to my knowledge, we don’t have any records of assaults occurring in our restrooms.” He was lying, the grand jury found: He and other school staff had already discussed the offense. Ziegler has said he thought he was being asked if they had records of any transgender or gender-fluid students assaulting other students in school bathrooms.

And there was a lead up, too, to the second assault. On Sept. 9, the boy grabbed a girl aggressively, tapped her head with a pencil and asked if she posted nude photos online. He asked another boy in his class “if his grandmothers’ nudes were posted online,” according to the report.

The superintendent, deputy superintendent and chief of staff were alerted to these incidents and knew this was the same boy involved in the earlier assault, the grand jury reported. 

“Despite having a 12-page disciplinary file, wearing an ankle monitor, being closely monitored by the Broad Run principal, knowledge of this incident by the highest administrators in LCPS … the individual received nothing more than a verbal admonishment,” they wrote. 

A juvenile court judge found sufficient evidence to sustain the charges in the first assault in October 2021 and the teen pleaded no contest to the charges in the second assault a month later. The judge to receive treatment, counseling and full rehabilitation at a locked residential facility until he turns 18, noting, “This one scares me.”

Erin Poe, who has three sons in the district, said she was devastated upon learning the scope of school administrators’ dishonesty and ineptitude. 

“I cannot imagine what this has done to the girls’ lives,” she said, adding she laments the district’s “unconscionable” decision to hide this news from families and move the offending student to another campus. “The entire situation was handled so poorly, from the victims to the child who committed these acts. All the way around, things need to change.”

Poe, co-founder of , an activist group, told The 74 she’s grateful for the Republican governor’s intervention: She voted for Youngkin and hopes he’ll help expose the district’s wrongdoings. 

“I was happy to see Youngkin was going to make Loudoun County an example,” she said, adding his involvement, “would make it harder for them to do things the way they want — rather than the way it should be handled.”

But Daniel Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, said Youngkin’s role has gone “above and beyond.” He said the investigation into the district’s handling of the case could have happened without him. 

“I think it’s just part of his politics to continue to come across as the champion of education in Virginia — and a champion of parents’ rights,” said Domenech, who lives in Virginia and has closely watched Youngkin’s ascent and the scandal plaguing the Loudoun schools.

He said both Youngkin and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — alongside Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who during the pandemic — are “out of line.” 

He cited DeSantis for removing board members from Broward County schools this summer after a grand jury accused them of related to their role in managing a campus security program. DeSantis ordered the grand jury to investigate the district after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in 2018. 

That probe also resulted in the 2021 indictment on felony perjury charges of former Broward County schools Superintendent Robert Runcie, of the hardline governor. Runcie has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

“DeSantis has gotten himself involved in education to a level we have never seen,” Domenech said. “He’s, in a number of school districts, removed board members, appointed board members — which is really a local election process. I’ve been in this business for 55 years and have never seen anything like this.”

In Loudoun County, the parents of the second victim had little use for school leadership across the board, according to a statement they issued after the release of the grand jury’s report.

“The senior leaders at both high schools, along with the Loudoun County Public Schools and the School Board members, should be reminded that our fifteen-year-old daughter displayed more courage and leadership when she reported what happened to her to the Sheriff’s Resource Officer than any of them ever did,” they said. “The ineptitude of all involved is staggering.”

Disclosure: Andy Rotherham is a member of the Virginia Board of Education and sits on The 74’s board of directors. He played no role in the reporting or editing of this story.