Placed inside the folder of parental rights and one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s major agenda items, a school voucherlike program appeared to have a good chance of passing through the Legislature.
That was until the familiar coalition of rural and urban lawmakers against implementing programs that would give students public money to attend private schools stopped the proposal from being seriously considered in the Texas House.
What was going to be one of Abbott’s greatest political victories could become an embarrassing setback.
On April 6, the House passed a budget amendment against voucher like programs. The amendment was supported by Democrats and Republicans, particularly rural lawmakers. It signaled that such a school choice plan is still a nonstarter in the House, even as the Senate approved the proposal backed by Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
Voucher programs have always been defeated in Texas by a coalition of rural and urban lawmakers who fear such plans would drain resources from public school districts.
School choice proponents say a major goal has been to give students the option of escaping failing schools, which proponents have often targeted as urban areas.
This year, lawmakers supporting the Texas voucherlike plan tried to mollify rural lawmakers and voters.
The plan would create $8,000 education savings accounts, or ESAs, for families to spend on private school tuition, tutoring and books or other materials. School funding is largely tied to enrollment. So for five years, the Senate’s plan would give small districts, including rural areas, a financial cushion by providing $10,000 for each student who left using an ESA.
But rural residents are not buying it.
Can you blame them? They have watched over the years as their hospitals have closed, making it challenging to receive medical care. They don’t want their schools in crisis, though proponents of school choice insist that won’t happen.
“Rural legislators in Texas are heavily influenced by public school districts that are major employers in their communities,” said Republican political consultant Matthew Langston, who backs school choice. “I don’t think the issue has been effectively communicated with the rural guys. There’s a built-in fear. They know what you’re promising, but they don’t trust it.”
Rural residents fear that allowing any voucherlike program would catch up with them down the line, no matter what lawmakers are promising today.
“There’s no guarantee that two years from now they won’t come in and mess with the funding sources,” Langston said. “The reality comes down to there’s not been enough done to make sure that they can go back and look their local school officials in the eye and say, ‘We’re fully behind you, and this vote doesn’t impact the funding sources going into the district.’”
Mark Owens, a University of Texas at Tyler political scientist, said Republicans typically support school choice, especially in areas where private schools are thriving. But in many rural areas, the only choice is public schools, and they bind communities.
“They are often the major employer in town,” Owens said.
Republican lawmakers against the school choice plan are apparently not swayed by Abbott, who has embarked on a multicity tour pushing the proposal. His road trip has included small cities and towns and focused heavily on private, Christian schools.
The results, as they stand now, show Abbott would have done better by broadening his pitch. And it reveals that his clout isn’t enough to score a win on an issue that conservatives have been losing on for decades.
Lawmakers will likely pass some sort of school choice plan, perhaps one that expands a practice that allowed special needs students to get public funding for education services.
But the broader plan appears out of reach, unless Abbott and school choice proponents can turn the tide in the House.
On Sunday’s edition of Lone Star Politics, a television show produced by KXAS-TV (NBC5) and The Dallas Morning News, Texas Private Schools Association President Jay Ferguson, said the school choice movement is making progress in Texas.
He added that providing school choice is not about disenfranchising public schools.
“Public schools always have the home-field advantage,” he said. “We don’t represent an existential threat to public schools, whether rural or urban.”
In a year that Abbott is trying to keep pace with presidential contenders such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, losing out on school choice will place a blemish on his record. This year DeSantis signed into law a Florida school choice bill.
In making his pitch, Abbott has criticized public schools for promoting “woke-ism” and accused some of them of sexualizing kids and teaching a radical ideology. Such culture war issues are popular with conservatives.
In response, Democrats aren’t sparring the rod when discussing Abbott push for school choice.
“Abbott totally misread rural voters and their reps,” said Matt Angle, the director of the Democratic Party research group called the Lone Star Project. “They like their public schools a lot more than they like Greg Abbott. He doesn’t inspire anyone, and he doesn’t scare anyone.”
