Last week, during a “State of the Schools” event in North Alabama, leaders from Huntsville City, Madison City, and Madison County schools sounded a familiar but mathematically creative alarm.

They claimed that the expansion of the CHOOSE Act and universal school choice would “cost” their districts a combined $100 million. The $100 million figure is a phantom number designed to protect a monopoly, rather than a reflection of financial reality.

It is time to ground this conversation in facts. To characterize parental freedom as a cost to a bureaucracy is to fundamentally misunderstand whom education funding belongs to: it belongs to the children of Alabama, not the systems assigned to them by their zip code.

The claim that school choice is “draining” public education is impossible to reconcile with the actual state budget. For Fiscal Year 2026, the Alabama Legislature passed a record-shattering $12.2 billion total education funding package. This includes:

• $9.9 billion in the core Education Trust Fund (ETF) — a $560 million increase over last year.
• $419.7 million in supplemental spending for immediate needs like school safety and fleet renewal.
• $1.12 billion in the Advancement and Technology Fund for one-time facility improvements.

While school leaders decry a deficit, the state is actually flooding the system with more taxpayer dollars than ever before. Since 2016, ETF spending has grown by over 56%. If a system is struggling while sitting on a nearly $10 billion fund, the problem is not a lack of money, it is a lack of leadership.

A common misconception, often intentionally repeated, is that the CHOOSE Act takes money away from the existing K-12 Foundation Program. That is false. The $180 million allocated for the CHOOSE Act this year represents a mere 1.4% of the total $12.2 billion education package.

More importantly, this money is not pulled from teacher salaries or classrooms at all. So far, the CHOOSE Act has been funded by the Education Opportunities Reserve Fund, a separate savings account created specifically for transformative education initiatives.

The $100 million loss cited by local leaders assumes a mass exodus of students that simply isn’t happening. For the most part, these districts are essentially claiming they are losing money for students they were never actually educating.

Furthermore, when a public school student does leave for a private or homeschooling option, the local property tax revenue, which is substantial in high-growth areas like Madison County, stays with the local district. The public school retains the local funding but no longer has the expense of educating that child. On a per-pupil basis, the students who remain in public schools often end up with more funding, not less.

The most revealing part of this debate is what these complaining districts aren’t doing. Under the CHOOSE Act, public school systems are invited to register as Education Service Providers (ESPs). This would allow them to accept out-of-district students and retain the $7,000 ESA; they can also offer specialized labs and/or courses to homeschoolers in exchange for ESA funds. To date, the participation from these three districts as providers is zero. The truth is that local leaders in Huntsville/Madison and education leadership across the state have decided, or been directed, to view the CHOOSE Act as a threat rather than an opportunity to compete for and attract new students.

That is short sighted at best.

Huntsville, Alabama is a global hub for innovation. We don’t accept monopolies in our economy, so why should we accept monopolies for our children’s classrooms? Why aren’t leaders in Huntsville/Madison embracing education freedom and innovation? Those are the questions that need answering by district leadership.

The real issue we should all be discussing is the cost of a child stuck in a school that doesn’t work for them. The real cost is a child’s potential being lost in a fiscal turf war amongst adults who personally benefit from entrapping kids in a system that their parents want them out of.

As for Alabama Policy, we believe Alabama’s children are worth every single penny.

Stephanie Holden Smith is the President of the Alabama Policy Institute.