Monday, September 23, 2024
Governor Greg Abbott aggressively insists that Texas adopt an “Education Savings Account” voucher program for all students, in which billions of our tax dollars would be sent to parents of Texas children already attending private schools or already being home schooled. Let’s explore how much that proposal would cost the State of Texas.
The Texas Private School Association website states that 250,000 Texas students attend private schools. The Texas Homeschool Coalition states that 750,000 Texas students are home-schoolers, which means that around 1 million children in Texas are educated outside our public schools, which educates 5.5 million Texas students.
Last legislative session, the Texas Senate proposed an $8,000 voucher for private school (including home schooled students), while the House proposed $10,500 voucher for private schoolers and $1,000 voucher for home-schooled students. The House bill estimated a 2-year cost of about $4 billion, but if all privately educated students used it, the cost would be approximately $7 billion for the two year (biennium) budget. If 1 million private students received the Senate’s voucher, the cost would be $16 billion in the next biennium budget. Governor Abbott advocated all private and homeschool students receive the same voucher. If he were successful, the House $10,500 voucher would cost us Texas taxpayers $21 billion per biennium. These staggeringly large numbers are before the cost of even one public school student leaving to attend a private school is considered.
Public schools would also lose over $1 billion in state funding every biennium for every 1% of students taking a voucher. If even one student leaves, the district loses funding, but their costs to operate its schools stay the same. This would be a huge blow to school districts already facing budget deficits, like Waco ISD, which is dealing with a $14 million deficit for the 2024-2025 school year.
Spending wildly like this isn't "conservative." Arizona's voucher program cost the state five times more than expected in its first year, with costs rising even more in the second. Texas should learn from Arizona's mistake.
The Texas Constitution requires the Legislature to financially support an efficient system of free public schools. Yet, the basic funding for public schools hasn't increased since 2019, while costs have risen 20%. Texas ranks in the bottom 10 states for per-pupil funding, falling over $4,000 below the national average, and Texas teachers are paid $13,000 less than the national average. The Legislature is violating the Texas Constitution by under-funding our public schools, where the vast majority of Texas children are educated. Instead of fully funding our public schools, as the Texas Constitution requires, they want to spend billions giving our tax dollars to students already attending private and home schools.
Republicans justify this by claiming Texas parents need a "choice" because public schools are "bad." I reject that notion. Starving our schools of funds prevents them from thriving. The real issue is underfunding public schools and underpaying teachers, which has caused the challenges they face. Many teachers are forced to work extra jobs or leave the profession due to low pay and overwork, leaving many Texas students to be taught by uncertified teachers.
Governor Abbott spent $6 million, given to him in a single donation by a hedge fund manager from Pennsylvania, and pro-voucher billionaires spent millions more to defeat Republican legislators who had joined with Democrats in the last Texas legislative session in a bi-partisan coalition to block this voucher scam. Now these billionaires, whose end goal is to make our public schools private corporations that they control, are supporting pro-voucher candidates like my opponent - Pat Curry.
The vast majority of Texas children, including virtually all of our special needs children such as my disabled daughter Rachel, are educated in Texas public schools and those children deserve a fully funded educational system that will ensure our future by educating the next generation. It only takes flipping three seats in the Texas House to block this voucher scam and I will fight against it and stand proudly for conservative financial decisions, and for the education of our children and grandchildren. All I need is your vote.
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