Harris’ Opportunity Rhetoric Doesn’t Match School Choice Stance

Patrick Gleason writes for Forbes about the mismatch between Kamala Harris’ words and her policy preferences.

In response to the first question posed to her at the September 10 presidential debate hosted by ABC, Vice President Kamala Harris touted what she describes as an “opportunity economy,” a term she has continued to reference on the campaign trail. Given her campaign themes of “freedom” and “opportunity,” it’s logical for a member of the national or battleground state press corps to ask Harris about the incongruence between that rhetoric and her rejection of school choice programs that expand opportunity by increasing education options available to parents and children.

For example North Carolina, which both Harris and her running mate have visited in recent days, has an Opportunity Scholarship Program, first enacted in 2013, that now provides tens of thousands of families with education vouchers that help them access more education options. Despite polling indicating its cross-ideological popularity, Governor Roy Cooper (D-N.C.) and other leading Democrats continue to oppose the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provides families with an education voucher worth a little more than $7,000 annually to cover private school tuition. It would be instructive for North Carolina voters to hear Harris explain why she opposes this and other school choice programs that provide families more education opportunities.

Kamala Harris’s most recent visit to North Carolina on September 12 came just one day after the GOP-run General Assembly in Raleigh passed legislation that will provide additional funding for the Opportunity Scholarship Program. …

… The Republican-controlled North Carolina House and Senate are expected override Cooper’s veto in the coming days, green lighting a funding boost that will address growing demand for the state’s school choice programs. School choice advocates point out that if Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, Roy Cooper, and other leading Democrats had their way, families would not be able to access ESAs or education vouchers.