By Riley Gaines, via Daily Caller News Foundation | May 01, 2025
Last week, the Texas legislature finally passed legislation to implement universal school choice in the state. Despite being a conservative stronghold, this victory did not come easily. For the past few legislative sessions, Democrats — with the help of a select few Republicans — succeeded in blocking efforts to pass this critical bill.
Last year, however, many legislators who opposed school choice were unseated by candidates who supported it. As a result, the Texas legislature was able to pass a transformative school choice bill. Now, families across the state will finally reap the benefits of having more choice in education.
Across the country, efforts to implement or expand school choice are making headlines. It has become increasingly clear that school choice is the only way to combat the woke ideologies that have taken root in our public schools. The school choice revolution is undoubtedly here — and it will save the American education system.
Public schools play a critical role in the American education system, but a one-size-fits-all approach does not work in education. Government-run schools cannot meet the needs of every student, and what’s more, in countless school districts across the country, public schools are being used to promote radical ideologies and indoctrinate our children.
In many states, legislators have taken steps to ban radical curricula like Critical Race Theory and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump also signed an executive order banning CRT in K-12 schools. Unfortunately, unelected school administrators have proven that the law only works if school administrators follow it.
Investigations into states, from Virginia to Ohio and from Texas to Utah, have revealed that many schools continue to teach these materials in defiance of state law. Rather than allowing these teachers to push radical political agendas behind closed doors, parents should have the power to send their children to schools that better match their values.
As we have come to learn, “wokeness” in schools also extends beyond the curriculum or materials taught in the classroom. The debate over allowing trans-identified male students to play on girls’ sports teams, use girls’ bathrooms, or room with female classmates on class trips has made headlines nationwide. Certain school districts have even instituted policies that allow teachers to shield important information about students, such as their preferred “gender identity,” from parents.
Just as many states have banned DEI and CRT in schools, many have also instituted bans against some of these policies, like the Save Women’s Sports Act in Texas, which mandates that students are only allowed to play on the team that corresponds with their sex. Unfortunately, legislation does not go far enough. Watchdog group Accuracy in Media (AIM) recently made headlines when it released a series of investigations that exposed administrators across Texas who coached parents on how to circumvent the law. In another AIM investigation, an administrator told an undercover journalist posing as a parent that biological boys are sometimes permitted to share rooms with female classmates on school trips.
These videos were a shocking revelation, but an important one, underscoring the urgent need for more freedom in education. Universal school choice will ensure that parents are no longer forced to send their children to a school where their safety — or their values — may be compromised. Giving parents more choice in education will also lead to more competition, which in turn will weed out ineffective and deceptive educators, leading to a stronger school system for all Texans.
For too long, radical administrators have been allowed to go unchecked, while students and parents were forced to take a back seat to powerful and progressive teachers’ unions. That stops now. Universal school choice will finally give power back to Texas parents. Other states nationwide would do well to follow Texas’s lead.
Riley Gaines is the Founder of the Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute and host of Outkick’s ‘Gaines for Girls’.
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