WPA Research, a leading research and data analytics firm, this week issued a new report detailing the strength of support for school choice across a majority of Texas House and Senate Districts.
According to the results published online, WPA’s analyses show that most state legislators who voted against school choice (either by voting against SB 3 in the Senate, or against budget amendments 8 and 9 in the House), voted directly against the will of their constituents, who have shown overwhelming support for expanding educational options for parents.
WPA started by collecting 5,000 responses from registered voters in Texas before applying predictive analytic machine learning techniques to assign probability scores for each individual registered voter to measure their support for school choice.
Key findings of WPA’s analysis include, but are not limited to the following:
- Voters support school choice in every Texas Senate district;
- The average level of support for school choice across all State Senate Districts in Texas is 63%;
- The highest ratio of support comes from Senate District 31 (Seliger, R-Amarillo);
- The average level of support for school choice across State House Districts in Texas was also 63%;
- The highest ratio of support came from House District 86 (Smithee, R-Amarillo).
Texans for Education Opportunity chair and co-founder Stacy Hock issued the following statement regarding the report:
“School choice is supported by a majority of Texans from all corners of the state. Texans deserve to have their voices heard. It is time for legislators to do what is right for Texas parents and the generations of students who would benefit from having a school choice program.”
The full text of the report, as well as a breakdown of data by members who voted against school choice and are at odds with their constituents, can be found here.
To learn more about Texans for Education Opportunity, visit our website, www.TxEdOpportunity.org.