Texas lawmakers are back at the State Capitol in an attempt to find common ground on the controversial matter of introducing school vouchers in Texas.
Gov. Greg Abbott has threatened to call one special session after another in order to push through this high priority matter for him and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
The latest special session is the third this year. Besides school vouchers, lawmakers are expected to tackle border security, public safety matters and ending Covid-19 vaccine requirements by private employers.
“Together, we will chart a brighter future for all Texas children by empowering parents to choose the best education option for their child,” Abbott said in a statement about passing legislation to allow school vouchers in the state.
Despite Abbott’s determination, school vouchers remain a divisive matter in the Texas House, where Democrats have aligned with rural Republicans to block the school voucher legislation proposed by the Texas Senate.
The Senate proposed the establishment of “education savings accounts” that families could tap for private school tuition or to cover other private school expenses such as books and uniforms. Families would be eligible to receive $8,000 per child through the education savings accounts.
Texas lawmakers’ have unsuccessfully attempted to establish a school voucher system in the past.
In response to parents who want more control of their children’s education, Abbott and Patrick are determined to establish a voucher system.
In an attempt to win over rural Republicans during the regular session, school voucher proponents dangled an incentive of providing public school districts that have less than 20,000 students a $10,000 stipend for every child who takes advantage of the ESA and leaves the school system.
But the incentive didn’t resonate well with rural Republicans, who fear an eventual loss of public school funding and whose constituents have little opportunity to benefit since private schools are scarce in rural communities.
Educators and Democrats have continually argued that school vouchers shift funds away from struggling schools that especially impact low-income students. They prefer that state money be spent on teacher raises to help improve public education rather than subsidizing private schools.
Furthermore, public school districts are the largest employers in some rural communities and a drop in funding could result in job losses.
Parents and advocates for special needs students worry that while special education must be offered in public schools, private schools do not have to provide those services.
The list of opponents also includes Texas coaches, who according to a report by The Dallas Morning News worry about the impact of vouchers and the funding impact for public school sports.
Those most in support of school vouchers are private schools, including religious schools, which stand to benefit from an influx of students and money.
Bishop Michael Olson of the Diocese of Fort Worth has been an advocate for school vouchers and has taken a leading role in pressing their importance to Catholic schools. Olson had testified to lawmakers during the regular session and has posted letters supporting school choice from the Diocese and the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops of passage of school voucher legislation.
The current special session started off with tense relations among the state’s leadership and between the opposing sides on school vouchers, with what again appears to be little room for compromise.
Legislation has been introduced in the Senate to provide teacher raises, additional funding for public schools and more money to shore up school safety.
But those matters were not on Abbott’s special session agenda so it is unclear whether he will expand the session call to include public school funding.
Opposition to school vouchers among some Democrats is so strong that they say they would give up on teacher raises and additional public school funding to block vouchers from passing.
