Abbott’s push for school vouchers was blocked by Democrats and rural Republicans during the 2023 legislative session, but Abbott exacted revenge last week by unseating several of the bill’s opponents.
Following the primary elections, all eyes are on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as his strategy to unseat anti-voucher Republicans in the legislature appears to have been successful after the victory of several conservative candidates.
Abbott endorsed Republicans who supported his school choice bill, nine of whom defeated anti-voucher incumbents on Super Tuesday. These victories likely will encourage Abbott to reintroduce the bill in the 2025 legislative session.
School vouchers allocate taxpayer funds to private institutions, giving parents the opportunity to use those funds to cover their children’s private school tuition costs. Critics argue this direction of funds away from public schools is detrimental.
“We’ve never truly funded fully funded public schools,” said Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers (AFT). “If we’ve got all this extra money to be able to fund voucher programs for private indoctrination programs, then we should be able to fund neighborhood public schools at rates that make schools places where kids want to learn and teachers want to teach.”
According to the nonpartisan organization, Raise Your Hand Texas, a nonprofit dedicated to public policy investment in the state’s schoolchildren, the Lone Star State ranks in the bottom 10 states in per-student funding—some $4,000 behind the national average for per-pupil funding.
“School vouchers divert scarce public education funds to private schools, which are not required to comply with federal protections for students with disabilities or report and track spending and student performance,” said Amelia Folkes, Director of Communications for Raise Your Hand Texas. “With double-digit inflation, our education dollars do not go as far as they used to, and it is time to push the Texas Legislature for an inflationary adjustment to the basic allotment.”
Abbott’s push for the school choice bill faced strong opposition during the 2023 legislative session and subsequent special sessions. Ultimately, the bill was killed by opposition from both Democratic and Republican legislators. The governor later denied 77 bills from state representatives who did not support his school choice effort.
Rural Republicans and Democrats have staunchly opposed vouchers, as many are concerned about families who rely on public education and have limited options otherwise. Rural independent school districts make up more than 2,000 of Texas’ public school campuses, which is more than any other state, according to the US Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.
“Vouchers hurt our public schools by forcing rural communities to pay into a system they likely are unable to participate in, not protecting the rights of special education students, and leaving middle- and lower-class families with a large tuition bill for expenses not covered by a voucher,” said Folkes.
Abbott has framed the voucher issue as a way to combat what he calls the “woke agenda” in classrooms, and in doing so has sparked controversy over the curriculum taught in schools.
Critics including Capo, who is a former educator, say school curriculum comes from the State Board of Education, and is not influenced by political agendas.
The fate of the school voucher issue will come down to the runoff elections on May 28, as Abbott still remains short of the required support to pass the bill. But if two or more pro-voucher candidates win in the runoffs, Abbott would, at least theoretically, have the votes to pass his bill next year.
