Rural Chiefs Have Leverage in Fights Over Choice

In their quest to bring more private school options to parents, school choice advocates say they’ve run into a formidable and unexpected opponent: the rural school superintendent.

Private school choice—whether it comes in the form of vouchers, tax credits, or some other policy option—is becoming less of a Republican-vs.-Democrat issue, in which party affiliation tends to determine the level of state support for the issue, some experts say. Instead, they explain, school choice is increasingly becoming a rural-vs.-urban issue, with geography mattering more than political leaning.

That shift was illustrated during this month’s election for state schools superintendent in South Carolina, a Republican-dominated state where a Democrat has been declared the winner in a neck-and-neck race that was, at least in part, a referendum on school choice. Republicans in that conservative state continue to reject school choice ideas, and sometimes the...