National teacher’s union leader Randi Weingarten was in Birmingham Wednesday to warn about potential consequences of school choice legislation that is moving forward in Alabama.

Weingarten said that the CHOOSE Act would hurt students in public schools. The education savings act program would give $7,000 of state money to students to use for private school tuition or other educational expenses.

“We’re very concerned about a situation which has just been passed in the Alabama House that basically hugely takes money out of public schools and gives it to private schools,” she said.

The legislature will appropriate $100 million for the education savings account program for its first year, in 2025-26, but there is no estimate for how much the program may cost if fully implemented. The bill, supported by Gov. Kay Ivey, passed the House Tuesday. The Senate has not yet considered the bill.

“Essentially,” she said, “they take money away from the 90% of kids that go to public schools, and they make it much harder for these educators to do the work that we have to do.”

State lawmakers promoting the program said it is needed to help families who are unhappy with their local public school.

“The purpose behind this legislation is to provide opportunities that are not currently available to parents,” said Rep. Danny Garrett at a recent legislative hearing, “to use a portion of their tax dollars to choose a school that best meets the needs of their child, whether that be for academic, social, emotional, environmental, mental health, or perhaps bullying reasons.”

Weingarten said there is no evidence that public school students benefit from the ESAs.

Pointing to Florida, she said, “It’s not an exodus of, it is a depletion of funding. Because overwhelmingly, most of the money goes to people who already send their kids to private schools.”

EducationWeek, a news publication focused on the education industry, last year in a roundup of where ESAs are used, showed the majority of students in multiple states who obtained ESAs were already attending private schools, as Weingarten said.

Iowa, which started giving ESAs last fall, published certified numbers in late January showing about two-thirds of the 17,000 students using ESAs to attend private school this year were already attending private school.

Birmingham AFT President Richard Franklin said vouchers are promoted as a tool to help children, but it won’t help all children.

“We can’t be afraid to call our elected officials out,” he said. “I often tell people it’s a non-election year for our legislators. So in these years, they attack education. Next year, they won’t attack education. They’re going to act like they’re our friends that they want us to vote for.”

“We’re going to ask the legislators, we know what’s right by children,” Franklin said, “so just talk to us. Just communicate with us and support us.”

Franklin and Weingarten said public schools are showing improvements every day.

“I heard from the superintendent in [Jefferson County] yesterday,” Weingarten said, “talking about how they have completely changed the career tech ed options and the availability of them for students throughout Jefferson County.”

Weingarten said public schools can improve if they focus on literacy supports, wraparound services and career tech.

Smithfield community president Adrian Reynolds spoke about the things people in the neighborhood do to support students in Birmingham schools.

“When a school needs for parents to come in and read to the little ones,” Reynolds said, “we do that. When a school calls us and says they are having Saturday school, and we need for you to provide just a little breakfast for our children and our staff who’s coming in on a Saturday to work with our students, we’re there to help do that.”