James Talarico Filmed His Public School Campaign Ad at a $27,000 Private Academy

There’s something almost poetic about a politician who rails against school choice filming his education campaign ad at a private school where tuition runs over $27,000 a year. But that’s exactly what James Talarico, the Texas Senate candidate positioning himself as a champion of public education, just did.

The details here aren’t subtle. Talarico’s recent Spanish-language campaign spot features his former students from a now-closed San Antonio public school. These kids praise their old teacher for inspiring them, for telling them the world won’t be handed to them on a silver platter. Fair enough. But while these students speak, the camera captures the gleaming gymnasium of the Keystone School, an elite San Antonio private institution where high school tuition can set parents back more than $27,500 annually. Pre-K costs $17,000. You can even spot Keystone’s distinctive Cobra logo on the gym floor and banners in the background, though the campaign tried blurring it out.

The irony cuts deep. Talarico taught at Rhodes Middle School from 2011 to 2013, a public institution he describes as being in “one of Texas’s poorest zip codes.” That school doesn’t exist anymore. The San Antonio Independent School District shut it down last year after Rhodes received academically unacceptable ratings four straight years. Four years. That’s not a fluke or a bad semester. That’s systemic failure.

When the closure happened, Talarico blamed what he called a “systematic attack on public education” rather than acknowledging the school’s abysmal academic record. He was heartbroken, he said, because Rhodes meant so much to him personally. The sentiment sounds genuine until you consider what he’s fighting for now. Talarico calls school vouchers a “scam” and promises to oppose any school choice program if he makes it to the Texas Senate.

Let that sink in. The school where he taught failed so badly it got shuttered. Meanwhile, he’s filming campaign ads at a private school that clearly works, that parents are willing to pay premium prices to access. And his policy platform? Keep poor families trapped in failing schools by blocking vouchers that might give them the same options wealthy families already have.

The cognitive dissonance is staggering. Keystone School’s head, William Handmaker, was quick to clarify that renting out the facility doesn’t mean the school endorses Talarico. Smart move. Keystone is nonpartisan and nonprofit, and getting tangled up in this mess wouldn’t serve them well. But the damage to Talarico’s credibility is already done.

Here’s what this story really reveals about modern progressive education policy. It’s not actually about what works. If it were, politicians like Talarico would be studying successful schools, both public and private, and asking how to replicate those results. They’d be honest about failures and willing to try new approaches. Instead, the reflexive position is to protect the system at all costs, even when that system is demonstrably failing the very students they claim to champion.

School choice isn’t some radical concept. It’s just giving parents options, particularly parents who can’t afford to move to better districts or write five-figure tuition checks. Wealthy families already have school choice. They buy it through real estate or private school tuition. The question is whether we extend that same freedom to everyone else.

Talarico’s campaign chose the Keystone School for a reason. It looks good. The facilities are impressive. The environment screams success. But while he borrowed that backdrop for his political ambitions, he’s actively working to ensure the families most desperate for quality education can’t access similar options. He wants credit for teaching in a poor school while denying poor families the choice he implicitly validates by filming at Keystone.

This isn’t complicated. If public schools were universally excellent, nobody would need alternatives. But they’re not, and pretending otherwise while blocking every reform effort is political malpractice dressed up as principle. The students in Talarico’s ad deserve better than pretty words filmed in borrowed facilities. They deserve actual educational opportunities, not campaign props.

The visual metaphor here writes itself. A politician standing in an elite private school, surrounded by evidence of educational success, telling voters that giving families access to similar schools is a scam. That takes either breathtaking hypocrisy or a fundamental misunderstanding of what parents actually want for their children.

My guess? It’s neither. It’s just politics. Protecting the public education establishment, even its failing components, remains a non-negotiable position in certain political circles. But at least have the decency not to film your defense of that failing system inside the kind of successful school you’re ensuring most families can never afford.