Texas lawmakers kicked off a new legislative session mid-January and it has been no secret that “school choice,” “school vouchers,” “education freedom,” or some of its other monikers, would be a top priority.
The Texas Senate quickly passed SB2, which created Education Savings Accounts for Texans who hope to use public money to pay for private education.
Here are some highlights of the current legislation, which must now be debated by the Texas House of Representatives:
- $1 billion in surplus funds would pay for an estimated 100,000 ESAs
- ESAs would be administered by the Texas State Comptroller
- Eligibility is open to all Texas families with school-aged children
- If there’s more demand than supply, 80% would be reserved for students with financial or special needs.
- Financial need means, roughly, a family of four making a max of $160,000/year
- The remaining 20% is open to all students through a lottery
The idea of school vouchers has been debated in Texas for decades.
“The very first school voucher proposal in Texas was proposed right after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision,” said Scott Braddock, editor of The Quorum Report.
That 1954 Supreme Court decision forced schools to integrate, putting Black students and white students in the same classrooms.
“The leadership in Texas at that time wanted to come up with a proposal to allow for white parents to be able to take their white kids out of integrated schools and put them in private schools,” said Braddock.
This Texas Legislative Special Report spells it out, dated September 1, 1956.
The report recommends a “tuition grant plan” that would give students “state funds to have the child educated in a segregated, non-sectarian private school.”
That state money was only to be given “upon affidavit that the child was being withdrawn from the public schools due to the parents' dislike of integration.”
“That bill in that session was filibustered for, get this, 36 hours by Senator Henry B. Gonzalez of San Antonio, who said this was a disgusting, racist proposal,” said Braddock.
The idea of school vouchers has ebbed and flowed among Texas lawmakers ever since, often gaining traction when cultural tensions rise.
Over the years, Democrats and Republicans who opposed vouchers argued they would drain money from public schools.
“That part of the debate is not different now,” said Braddock. “What is different is the pressure campaign that Governor (Greg) Abbott has engaged in over the last two years.”
Before the 2023 legislative session, Abbott said passing a voucher plan was a priority.
“Parents deserve education freedom,” said Abbott, during his State of the State address in 2023. “Without that freedom, some parents are hindered from helping their child succeed. That must change.”
However, that plan never passed despite special legislative sessions.
Abbott promised he would campaign against those Republicans who opposed vouchers.
During state primaries, Abbott targeted Republican incumbents such as John Kuempel in Seguin and Steve Allison in San Antonio.
Most anti-Allison campaign ads didn’t talk about school vouchers, however.
They focused on a much more visible issue in Texas at the time: the Texas-Mexico border.
Allison, like several other Texas Republicans who voted against vouchers, lost.
“I’ve been with the governor on every single issue, every request he’s made since I’ve been in the legislature except this one issue,” said Allison, on a KSAT Q&A appearance on February 21, 2024.
“Everything changed on this when out-of-state money started to flow into the campaign coffers of Governor Abbott,” said Braddock.
A GOP megadonor from Pennsylvania, Jeff Yass, contributed $10 million to Abbott.
Yass is a billionaire investor, known for his stake in TikTok and for his contributions to school voucher efforts nationwide.
In Texas, his money helped the governor create a legislature that more likely to give vouchers a passing grade.
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