After presiding over the passage of a school voucher bill in the Texas Senate, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick challenged the House to do the same. Six school voucher bills have died in the House. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Democrats in the Senate didn’t have the votes to stop the school vouchers measure, which now moves to the Texas House.
A bill that provides up to $11,500 in tax dollars per student for private schooling passed the Texas Senate on Wednesday, moving forward a top legislative priority for Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
Senate Bill 2, the first approved by the Senate this year, now moves to the House, where similar measures died four times in 2023 during the last legislative session.
Sen. Brandon Creighton authored the bill and shepherded it through the Senate Committee on Education K-16 he chairs on Jan. 28. The Conroe Republican has repeatedly said the measure will provide school choice options that Texans want.
“SB 2 will serve more students with more funding than any previous proposal in Texas history,” Creighton said.
“Creating a plan and launching a plan, we should have the best plan. And we should have a bold plan and we should have the largest launch in American history and we will,” he added.
Some 32 states offer versions of school voucher programs, and Creighton has often pointed to voucher initiatives in Arizona and Florida. Yet the Arizona effort has blown a hole in the state budget and regularly experiences fraud, while the Florida program has been criticized for draining funds from public schools. Brookings, a nonpartisan think tank, has called the Arizona program “a handout to the wealthy.”
Both chambers in the Texas legislature set aside $1 billion to fund the voucher program in budget proposals, though that amount could change when lawmakers approve a state budget. Creighton said $1 billion would allow up to 100,000 students to take part.
Under the bill, the school voucher program would start ahead of the 2026-27 school year for students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Vouchers for students at an accredited private school would be $10,000, or $11,500 if they have special needs. Most home school students could receive $2,000. On Wednesday, lawmakers amended the bill to include $2,500 vouchers for home school students with special needs.
Parents wouldn’t receive funds directly; instead the money would be deposited into education savings accounts and sent directly to approved vendors. The money could be spent on tuition and fees for private schools, higher education institutions, training for programs that offer industry-based certifications, instructional materials, educational services at public schools that don’t qualify for state funding, private tutoring, and educational therapies.
Some 80% of the vouchers are set aside for public school students whose families earn below a certain income or students with a disability, while the remaining 20% of vouchers would be available to anyone and filled by a lottery. The restrictions for the 80% of recipients only apply if applications to the program outstrip funding.
For the 80% of voucher slots with restrictions, the bill sets the income limit for families at 500% of the federal poverty rate. For a family of four, that’s about $160,000 per year. Yet in Texas, the median family income is $79,000 and students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch if their household income is below 185% of the federal poverty guideline, or about $59,000 for a family of four.
On Wednesday, Democrats criticized the bill’s income thresholds for not prioritizing students from low-income families, a refrain they also echoed during the committee hearing last week.
“This bill itself acts to further the self-segregation of the state of Texas,” said Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, an Austin Democrat. “We have a constitutional obligation to provide a system of free public schools. And yet a majority in this chamber neglects the essentials to lavish money on a tiny segment of Texans who send their kids to private school. Nowhere in the Texas Constitution does it say we have an obligation to subsidize private schools.”
Yet with just 11 Democrats in the Senate, they didn’t have the votes to stop the bill during a floor debate that lasted more than seven hours.
Democrats proposed 18 amendments, but all were rejected. Among them were 10 amendments from Sen. José Menéndez, a Democrat from San Antonio. He proposed lowering the income thresholds for the vouchers to mirror federal guidelines for students receiving free or reduced lunch, expanding the vouchers for kids enrolled in childcare programs, and adding a provision to protect students who are bullied.
Menéndez also proposed returning a hold harmless provision to the bill, which Creighton dropped from the current legislation. It calls for continuing to provide per student funding to public schools for students who leave with a voucher.
Some 19 amendments from Republicans were either accepted by Creighton without objection or the Senate voted to add them to the bill. The measures made minor tweaks to the legislation or removed redundant language.
The measure easily passed the Senate 19-12, with one Republican — Sen. Robert Nichols — joining Democrats in opposing the bill.
