Students listen to their teacher during a class at Phoenix Christian School PreK-8 in Phoenix. School choice allows taxpayer money to pay for private school tuition instead of only financing public schools. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has pressed hard for school choice, using funds from out-of-state allies to defeat members of his own party who oppose it. (Ross D. Franklin/The Associated Press)

For years, many rural Texas school districts, often barely scraping by on lean operating budgets, have relied on their local representatives in the Republican-led state legislature to fend off school voucher programs. Some of these GOP lawmakers, along with many of their liberal colleagues from larger cities, have argued that giving families taxpayer dollars to send their children to private schools or to educate them at home would drain money from the public schools.

That wall of resistance is now on the verge of collapse, thanks to a multimillion-dollar political offensive led by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and heavily funded by billionaire out-of-state allies committed to spreading school choice nationwide.

Six of the Republican House members Abbott targeted for opposing his school choice initiative were defeated in the March 5 primary election, and four others were thrown into a May runoff. Abbott said last week that his side is within two votes of enacting a school choice program in Texas.

“Even individuals who voted against school choice who won need to rethink their position in light of Abbott’s success on the issue,” said Matt Rinaldi, outgoing chair of the Texas Republican Party. “It’s sure to pass after these election results.”

Similar dynamics have been on display over the past two years in other states where rural opponents, sometimes aligned with labor groups and teachers unions, have sought unsuccessfully to head off the widening push. School choice can come through vouchers, refundable tax credits or education savings accounts.

In Georgia, lawmakers sent an expanded school voucher plan to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp last week for his expected signature after proponents overcame years of opposition from rural Republicans allied with Democrats.

In Oklahoma, Tom Newell, a former Republican state legislator who works for a foundation that advocates for school choice, said rural resistance has steadily diminished in that state, too, enabling lawmakers to equip parents with education tax credits that became effective this year.

Rural Texas educators who have long opposed school choice are now bracing for it. “We really are the heart, soul and backbone of Texas,” said Randy Willis, executive director of the Texas Association of Rural School Districts, which has long opposed school choice. “We’re going to be left with a lot less resources as this progresses and goes through.”

In the small Texas Panhandle community of Booker, which has two blinking traffic lights and is closer to Cheyenne, Wyoming, than the state capital of Austin, school Superintendent Mike Lee has similar concerns.

“In all likelihood, that makes it where Abbott could pass vouchers,” Lee said of the primary election results.

Like many other rural school leaders, Lee said any loss of funding would make it even harder for his district to pay for basic operations and new, state-mandated safety programs launched in response to school shootings.

‘Game changer:’ Amendment for public dollars to nonpublic schools clears General Assembly

Primary battles

Despite the concerns of school officials such as Willis and Lee, school choice proponents say the rapid spread of the concept in Texas and other states dismantles the perception that rural residents oppose it.

“There’s been a myth in Texas that rural Republicans do not want school choice,” said Genevieve Collins, state director of the Texas branch of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group. Voters “put that myth to bed” in the recent Republican primary, she told Stateline.

Abbott said during a speech last week that parents frequently approached him on the campaign trail “begging” and “pleading” for school choice. “Any Republican House member who was voting against school choice was voting against the voice of the Republicans who voted in that primary,” he said.

School choice advocates argue that giving families public education dollars to pay for private school allows everybody — not just the wealthy — to choose the school that is best for their child. Though most Republicans support school choice and most Democrats oppose it, the issue doesn’t break cleanly along party lines: Just as some rural Republicans oppose vouchers, some Black and Hispanic Democrats support them, arguing that families should have an alternative if their local public schools are substandard.

“When you look at this, you can see that the majority of parents want school choice. They just want to be empowered with the decisions of their children’s future,” Hillary Hickland, a mother of four who defeated Republican incumbent state Rep. Hugh Shine of Temple, said of the primary results. Shine was one of 21 Republicans who voted to take vouchers out of the education bill last year, according to The Texas Tribune, and the governor endorsed Hickland.

“I think the arguments against school choice are based in fear and control. Ultimately, we have to do what’s best for the students. That’s the purpose of education,” said Hickland, who added: “For the majority of families, public school will always be right and best, and that’s great. We’re not giving up on our public schools.”

Janis Holt, a former teacher in the Silsbee Independent School District northeast of Houston, defeated incumbent Republican state Rep. Ernest Bailes, another voucher opponent who earned Abbott’s ire. Holt said she is reassuring rural superintendents in her district that she is a staunch supporter of both public school funding and school choice.

“We’re going to make sure that we protect the students that will be in our public schools, our teachers and administrators, but will also give parents opportunities to get their kids out of a failing school when they need to,” Holt said.

Republican state Rep. Gary VanDeaver, one of the House members targeted by Abbott, hasn’t wavered from his opposition to school choice initiatives. VanDeaver survived in the first primary round on March 5 but wound up in a May 28 runoff against an opponent backed by the governor.

“I’m just going to try to dodge all the bombs that are dropped on me and keep working to get a positive message out there and make sure everybody understands what’s at stake,” said VanDeaver, a former school superintendent.

He fears Abbott’s school choice drive will redirect billions of dollars a year from rural Texas school districts to urban and suburban ones. “The economies of the small communities are struggling as it is,” he said. “There’s just a lot of reasons that something like this is bad for rural Texas.”

Rapid spread

School choice programs have spread rapidly in recent years, aided by groups such as the American Federation for Children, which was founded by the billionaire family of former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Americans for Prosperity, affiliated with the conservative billionaire Koch family.

“Nationally we really saw that momentum take off a couple of years ago,” said Chantal Lovell of EdChoice, a nonprofit group that tracks and promotes school choice. “After 2023 there was no stopping it, and it’s clear that universal educational choice isn’t a fleeting trend, but here to stay.”

As many as 73 programs have been implemented in 32 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, including 11 with a comprehensive statewide reach and 62 that serve various portions of the population, according to EdChoice.

Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed a program into law earlier this month, and a bill is awaiting the governor’s signature in Wyoming.

Texas emerged as the most closely watched school choice battleground after Abbott last year made the issue one of his top priorities and called repeated special sessions in an attempt to overcome opposition from a coalition of rural Republicans aligned with Democrats.

Abbott unleashed millions of dollars from his campaign funds and traveled into the home counties of resistant Republicans after a school choice initiative collapsed in the Texas House.

Other dynamics were also at work, including endorsements by former President Donald Trump, who has equated school choice with civil rights, and Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who sought to settle scores against House members for initiating an unsuccessful effort to oust him through impeachment.

Big money

An avalanche of campaign dollars from both inside and outside the state helped propel Abbott’s offensive, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit research organization that tracks political spending.

Billionaire?Jeff Yass, a megadonor investor based in Pennsylvania and one of the nation’s leading school choice advocates,?gave?the governor’s campaign more than $6 million, which Abbott officials described as the “largest single donation in Texas history.”

Abbott, who is not up for reelection until 2026, was one of the biggest spenders in the undertaking, drawing $6.4 million from his campaign fund to help finance opposition expenditures against incumbents on his hit list.

The AFC Victory Fund, a super PAC the American Federation for Children created in September, directed its resources into 20 Republican primary races in Texas, opposing 13 Republican incumbents, supporting six others and financing a 20th candidate for an open seat, according to Scott Jensen, a former Wisconsin House speaker who is now a senior adviser to the American Federation for Children.

For many of the targeted legislators, the political attack was insurmountable. “We gave it everything we had, but you can’t overcome being outspent over 4-to-1,” said Republican state Rep. Travis Clardy, who lost to Joanne Shofner, former president of the Nacogdoches County Republican Women.

Among other things, targeted incumbents said, the AFC Victory Fund financed a bombardment of mailings and ads that often went beyond school choice to focus on other issues, such as being lax on border security. One mailing was fashioned like a wanted poster.

Republican state Rep. Drew Darby, who prevailed over his challenger and doesn’t have a Democratic opponent, said the tactics were out of bounds and called Abbott’s involvement in his race “sad” for the state. “That’s a situation I’ve never seen in my political career,” said Darby.

Jensen said the AFC Victory Fund spent almost $4 million in Texas and plans to spend $15 million nationally on state school choice campaigns during the 2024 election cycle.

“Welcome to politics,” Jensen said of the criticism from targeted lawmakers. “These guys are long-term incumbents. I’m sorry if they haven’t been in a tough race for a while, but everything we said was accurate. And I don’t think any of it was misleading or unfair.”

At least 70% of the AFC Victory Fund’s communications, he said, focused on school choice.

In the Robert Lee Independent School District in West Texas, which has one campus and about 250 students, Superintendent Aaron Hood fears the potential impact on his district.

As with other districts, inflation has put a whammy on operating expenses, leaving Robert Lee with a budget deficit for the second year in a row. And because state funding is based on average daily attendance, if any students were to transfer to a private school under a school choice plan, Robert Lee would face a drop in state funds. (The nearest private school is 30 miles away, in San Angelo.)

For now, Hood says, it’s a bit too early to assess the potential impact of the primary results. But if Abbott prevails in the next round of electoral combat, he said, “then I would say that choice is coming to Texas.”

Jimmy Cloutier of OpenSecrets provided data on campaign contributions and expenditures for this article.

This article is republished from Stateline, a sister publication of the Kentucky Lantern and part of the nonprofit States Newsroom national network.

A security guard, right, stands at the entrance to a Nordstrom department store in Los Angeles where a smash-and-grab robbery took place. At least 14 states have passed laws in the past two years to combat retail theft, but critics question the need for these laws and say the threat of organized shoplifting rings is overblown. (Photo by Jae C. Hong/The Associated Press)

Even before Virginia lawmakers passed a tough new law against organized retail crime earlier this year, Bradley Haywood, a public defender in Arlington, Virginia, challenged the rationale. The idea that retailers in the state had lost billions to organized theft was a myth manufactured by retailers themselves, Haywood argued.

Now the outspoken lawyer has fresh ammunition for his effort to repeal the law: The National Retail Federation earlier this month retracted its April assertion that nearly half of the $94.5 billion in merchandise that went missing in 2021 was stolen by retail rings.?The true percentage was only a small fraction of that amount, about 5%.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures,?Virginia is one?of at least 14 states?that enacted retail theft laws over the past two years in response to reports of highly organized theft rings invading stores across the country and fleeing, collectively, with billions of dollars in merchandise.?Social media posts showing thieves storming retail outlets helped fuel the crackdown.

Nine states passed new laws this year, either toughening punishment or creating task forces to?study?the potential threats posed by organized theft rings.?At least one state — Texas — enacted two laws, one creating a task force and the other allowing potential thieves to avoid prosecution if they agree to an education course designed to steer them away from breaking the law.

In addition to Texas and Virginia, Alabama, Indiana, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Oregon enacted retail theft laws this year. California, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana and North Carolina did so last year.

Over the past several years, retailers, prosecutors and police have pushed state and federal lawmakers to crack down on thieves who, they say, have become increasingly sophisticated and violent.?Some large retailers have shuttered stores with the largest losses. And shoppers at many stores have had to get used to asking clerks to open locked displays of merchandise vulnerable to theft. Some retailers have directed employees not to pursue shoplifters, out of fear for their safety.

Despite emerging questions over the extent of the losses, law enforcement officers and prosecutors insist the threat is greater than ever, citing a recent series of busts against sometimes violent shoplifting rings amid the Christmas shopping season.

“To me, it’s getting worse,” said James Kneipp, a Houston Police Department detective. Police in the nation’s fourth-largest city recently arrested 13 suspects for allegedly participating in an organized theft ring, he said. “They’re getting bigger. They’re getting … braver,” Kneipp told Stateline. The investigation is ongoing.

Republican state Sen. Aaron Freeman authored the law in Indiana, which makes the organized retail theft of firearms or at least $50,000 in merchandise a Level 5 felony, which carries a penalty of up to six years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine. After the recent arrests of two suspects accused of stealing tools valued at thousands of dollars, Freeman publicly warned anyone thinking of following suit.

“This isn’t misdemeanor land anymore,” he told Indianapolis Fox 59.?“You’re going to play in felony world.”

A look at the numbers

The National Retail Federation, which describes itself as the world’s largest trade association, has been at the forefront of the lobbying campaign for tougher laws. In October, representatives from more than 30 retailers traveled to Washington, D.C., on a trip organized by the group to lobby for a major anti-theft bill in Congress.

But the organization’s campaign took a hit after it was forced to walk back its claim that nearly half of so-called inventory shrink in 2021 was attributable to organized retail crime. Shrink is an industry term to describe all inventory losses from multiple causes, including theft. The true number was?closer to 5%, or $4.7 billion. The trade publication?Retail Dive?first reported the error.

“Obviously, their account that they put out erroneous data hurts their credibility,” said Texas Democratic state Rep. Chris Turner, who authored the Lone Star State’s new law creating a 10-member task force headed by the state comptroller to examine the threat posed by organized retail theft.

“From my vantage point, if someone brought me data from that organization in the future, I’d want to double- and triple-check it.”

Mary McGinty, vice president of communications and public affairs for the National Retail Federation, said in statements to news outlets, including Stateline, that the organization was adjusting its figures after discovering the error, which she said was made by an analyst for K2 Integrity, an advisory group that assisted with the report.

According to the federation’s revised 2023 national retail security survey, McGinty said, overall shrink accounted for $112.1 billion in losses in 2022, up from $93.9 billion in 2021.?Internal and external theft of all kinds, “on par with previous years,” accounted for about two-thirds — or $73 billion — of retailers’ shrinkage, which she said can vary significantly from sector to sector.

Despite having to retract its initial estimate, retail federation officials?said the industry hasn’t changed its position that organized retail theft is more than “just shoplifting.”

“We stand behind the widely understood fact that organized retail crime is a serious problem impacting retailers of all sizes and communities across our nation,” said McGinty.

Other experts, however, say the extent of retail theft is yet to be determined.?“At this point, we just don’t have a strong grasp on the extent and changing nature of the shoplifting problem,” said Ernesto Lopez, research specialist for the Council on Criminal Justice,?which advocates for safety and equality in the U.S. criminal justice system.

“One reason for this is that we don’t know how many retailers are reporting theft incidents to police, and how often they are reporting them. We also don’t know how anti-theft measures taken by retailers may be affecting theft levels. Without all of that information, any portrait of shoplifting will be incomplete.”

Although videos of “smash-and-grab” rings storming department stores have ratcheted up concern about theft, a recent report by Lopez’s organization found that such incidents “are rare and account for a very small percentage of overall shoplifting,” said the analyst. More than 95% percent of shoplifting incidents are carried out by “one to two people,” he said.

Public officials respond

But many law enforcement officials, now armed with tougher state laws, continue to assert that?retail theft rings are often large and well-organized, made up of “boosters”?(shoplifters) and fences who peddle the stolen merchandise online or to other stores.

Fences also provide hotels and rent cars for boosters, who often hit several cities a day to procure stolen goods, according to investigators. Boosters often are given an online shopping list to illegally procure items such as power tools, over-the-counter medical items, cosmetics and toiletries.

In Florida, Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody and Palm Beach Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, a Democrat, recently announced the results of monthslong investigations that resulted in charges against 14?defendants in what Moody called a “massive” organized?theft ring that caused at least $20 million in losses to more than 20 different retailers, including Walmart, Target, Home Depot and Lowes.

Prosecutors and authorities also describe a menacing picture in?Alabama, which this year?enacted a law that allows law enforcement and prosecutors to cross jurisdictional lines to pursue bands of thieves who hit retailers in multiple cities.

“The main thing is it allows us to go and get the higher-ups … the real people who are profiting off this crime,” said Barry Matson, executive director of the Alabama District Attorneys Association, which pushed for the law. “We’ve had major national retailers close their doors in Alabama because theft was so high.”

Matson disparaged what he called “pro-criminal” advocates, including critics in the media and liberal-leaning social policy groups, who are pushing back against law enforcement’s portrayal of a national retail theft problem.?“I think there’s these groups that are more sympathetic to criminal defendants than?they are [to]?victims,” he told Stateline.

“We know it in the numbers. We see the images of the thieves, people going in and cleaning out stores. And it’s been at the expense of victims of crime, and I’m sick of it.”

But in Virginia, Haywood remains skeptical. He says he will fight to repeal his state’s law next year, though he acknowledges that it’s a long shot.

“The notion that, like, the mafia is going to get rich selling air freshener and deodorant … that just seems pretty ridiculous to me,” he said.

This story is republished from Stateline, a sister publication of the Kentucky Lantern and part of?States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and donors as a 501c(3) public charity.?