UPDATE: A new school choice bill was filed in the Senate on March 10. SB 8, backed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick calls for an $8,000 Education Savings Account for Texas students. Under this plan, anyone currently enrolled in public school, or starting their schooling for the first time, would be eligible for an ESA. Current private and homeschool students would not be eligible. The bill also addresses one of the largest concerns about school choice initiatives in Texas, mainly that rural districts will lose considerable funding. The bill grants rural school districts with fewer than 20,000 students $10,000 per departing student, per year for the first two years after a student exits.
Governor Greg Abbott announced in February that he is making ‘educational freedom’ an emergency item in the 88th Texas legislative session. A number of related bills were filed this session, including one that would provide substantial tax credits for donations to a universal scholarship fund. The one garnering the most attention, however, and the governor’s stamp of approval, is SB 176, filed by Sen. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston), which calls for a state-funded Educational Savings Account (ESA) for every child in Texas.
ESAs are not new. Texas currently provides an ESA for students with disabilities who attend public schools. “That program should be available to everybody in Texas,” Abbott said in a speech to private school parents in Corpus Christi last month. “So now is the time to expand ESA to every child in the state of Texas.”
The account would be funded each year with an amount equal to the “state average maintenance and operations expenditures per student in average daily attendance for the preceding state fiscal year,” currently about $10,000. Parents will be able to use that money for tuition, uniforms, textbooks, computers and other devices, tutoring, extracurricular activities, therapies, and even education-related transportation not to exceed $1,000 a year. The funds would roll over each year and could be used for higher education, as well.
The bill insists that ‘the best education for Texas school children is one directed by their parents’, that ‘there is not one best educational option for all Texas school children’, ‘children belong to their parents, not the government’ and that money should follow the child ‘to the educational option that best meets their unique educational needs’. In particular it cites Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue(2020) and in Carson v. Makin (2022), where the United States Supreme Court found that prohibiting the use of state funds for religious schools is a violation of the First amendment.
Governors Bush and Perry tried to push vouchers in the past and failed. Most recently, a voucher-type bill passed the senate in 2017 but failed to gain traction in the House. But with support for school choice increasing nationwide, Abbott insists that this is the time. More than a dozen states have already passed or expanded voucher programs. Arizona recently expanded their voucher program to include all students and a similar effort is underway in Florida.
Even the State Board of Education, long opposed to school choice for fear such measures would divert much-needed funding from public schools, and who had voted in November to reject all school choice proposals, made an about-face recently. Just a few days after Governor Abbott spoke in Corpus Christi, calling for the creation of Educational Savings accounts, the Board voted 8-5 to officially drop their legislative priority to oppose ‘school choice’ efforts. The surprising move came during the first board meeting with its new slate of more conservative members. The board indicated that they’d been hearing from many parents who want more control over their children’s schooling.
Support for school choice ramped up after the COVID-19 outbreak, when remote learning gave parents deeper visibility into what their children were learning. Discontent over mask mandates, critical race theory, and other controversial school topics had parents pushing for more choices when it comes to their children’s education. “Let’s be clear: Schools are for education, not indoctrination. Schools should not push woke agendas. Period.” Abbott said during his State of the State address in February.
Supporters of school choice believe that school vouchers will provide students with access to a better education and allow parents to choose the school’s they deem most fitting for their children. They also believe that the increased competition will increase the quality of education at public schools.
Opponents of the bill argue that vouchers only benefit the wealthy who already send their children to private school. They argue that low-income students still might not be able to afford private school tuition, which sits at an average of $9,000 statewide. Meanwhile, public schools, which are funded based on enrollment, would see a decline in funding commensurate with lower enrollment, which would further diminish the quality of education in public schools. In addition, budget cuts at public schools could have far-reaching implications, especially for rural areas where the schools are the largest employers. “School vouchers hurt Texas public schools because they direct funding away from an already critically underfunded system,” the Texas PTA states on its website.
In an interview with the Austin Chronicle, Superintendent Christie Whitbeck, in Fort Bend ISD pointed out that the education system already offers multiple options. “It just sounds good to say that a parent should have choice,” she said. “Well, yes they should, and they already do. Because we have charters everywhere, actually on top of public schools and on top of each other. … But when you add this extra dimension into it, I think our concern … is that you dilute the pool of educational funding, and that pool is what we use to provide all the choices that we give.”
Studies have been cited that support both sides of the argument. A study in Florida that showed that public schools’ test scores improved after they were forced to compete for students. Other studies, conducted by Harvard, showed that school choice programs “deepen educational inequality and fail to yield consistent learning gains.”
One thing is certain, the bill would be a huge boon to religious families, whose decisions to send their children to religious private schools are guided more by religious beliefs than economic ability.
Basya Benshushan, Creative Director of American Fortune Cookie, a boutique marketing agency specializing in branding, government relations and public affairs, with multiple clients in the Texas Legislature and the U.S. Congress, and.a long-time advocate of school choice in Texas, is optimistic about the prospects. “I couldn’t be more thrilled to see school choice as a top priority issue in the Texas legislature this session. For far too long, the school system has operated as a one size fits all solution limiting creativity and growth. School choice is the only solution that puts students first. Empowering parents with the resources needed to educate their children as they see fit opens a world of opportunity for every community!”
The ESAs would be funded by taxpayer money and private donations. The bill calls for up to $200 million in tax credits to be awarded to corporations that donate to this initiative.
SB 176 still has a long way to go. It was filed in November, and now needs to be reviewed by a Senate committee, and then voted on. If it passes the Senate, the same process is repeated in the House, after which the bill is sent to the Governor to be signed into law. If passed, the bill will take effect on January 1, 2024, which would impact the 2024-2025 school year.
Other emergency bill items mentioned by the governor in his State of the State address included lowering property taxes, ending COVID mandates forever, increasing border security, addressing the fentanyl crisis, and increasing the maximum sentence for illegal possession of a weapon.