The vote comes after a group of Republican holdouts in rural areas was defeated by a major challenger supported last year.
This is the largest voucher program in the country. Opponents have warned that while public school funding issues have led to issues with public school funding, Congress has also approved a larger increase in school funding.
The Texas House of Representatives voted to create a $1 billion school voucher program early Thursday, representing a major victory in the nation’s largest holdout red state. This was a top priority and a big win for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Republicans.
The House of Representatives voted 85-63 to pass the bill. It creates an education savings account that parents can spend on tuition fees and other education-related expenses for their children’s private schools.
The Texas Senate previously passed its own version of the bill. As Chambers adjusts the version in the coming weeks and Abbott signs the bill, as he said he will, Texas will become the largest state in the country to adopt a voucher program so far.
This represents a shift from the legislative meeting before 2023. In 2023, a group of Republicans from rural areas joined Democrats in a vote against the voucher proposal.
In the interim, Abbott supported a group of Provocative candidates who successfully represented several Republican primary last year. This is a strategy that seems to have been rewarded. In a statement, Abbott called the vote “an extraordinary victory for thousands of parents who defended more choices when it came to education.”
It’s long for victory to come
Pro-Voucher advocates have been pushing their cause in the Texas Legislature for decades. The proposal is generally popular in rural areas, and public schools may adopt large stocks of the population. That prevented the pro voucher Republicans from pushing it through Congress.
Abbott himself didn’t make vouchers a priority until relatively recently. Skeptics have always argued that voucher programs will fund away from public schools.
Both sides claim to have public support. The house “stopped the overwhelming majority of Texans who supported school choices,” Abbott said in a statement. However, Republicans have rejected a final ditch attempt to place the Democratic proposal in public votes. Last year voters in three states rejected statewide voting measures to advance school voucher policies. They include Nebraska and Kentucky, two severe Republican states.
“Abbott really is there saying this is very popular. Otherwise there’s a lot of polling,” says Rep. Jean Wu, chairman of the Texas House Democrat Caucus.
In fact, the Texas voucher proposal is not as good as some supporters like. Rather than a universal programme that several other red states have passed in recent years, they limit the program to $1 billion in their first year.
They also limit the amount of funds that can go to high-income families, booking less than 500% of the poverty line, or 80% of the family’s funds that earn around $160,000 a year for a family of four. “They’re allocating dollars, but that’s fine,” says Robert Enrow, president and CEO of Pro Voucher Group, which has been working to pass voucher policies in Texas since 1997.
Will the program grow?
That’s an important question not only for supporters, but for opponents as well. Josh Cowen, professor of education policy at Michigan State University, said Texas is “already underfunding public schools.” Critics of the voucher bill argued that lawmakers were forced to choose between maintaining or expanding the voucher program with public education funding needs.
It’s a familiar lament from voucher opponents. But the same day he passed the voucher program, the House approved $7.7 billion in public school funding, including a $3 billion increase in teacher pay and a $1.5 billion increase for special education. “This is more money for Texas public education than any other law in state history,” said Brad Buckley, chairman of the Capitol Public Education Board. “This is groundbreaking funding for public schools.”
The actual test will be in the future years. Lawmakers are also planning on sudden reductions in property taxes. The state has been operating in a surplus environment for several years, but that may not last forever. “They were able to find themselves two years from now, without having to cut their spending in other areas, without having to pay for school choices or property tax relief,” says Mark P. Jones, a political scientist at Rice University. “What (voucher opponents) are worried about is what will happen in two years if public education money is flatlined or cut but the voucher is held.”
The Arizona Universal Voucher Program has become much more expensive than expected in the first few years of its operation. For voucher opponents, it is proof that the program gradually sucks money from public schools. For supporters, it is evidence that parents want options.
“The more options you have, the more popular it becomes,” Enlow says.
Signs of momentum
Even with eligibility restrictions in place, Cowen says the Texas program is likely to disproportionately benefit more privileged students. In other states with voucher programs, voucher users are on average whiter, wealthier, and less likely to have special needs than the entire community. Most of the profits help pay tuition fees for students already in private schools, he says. “The whole of their base is parents of existing private schools who want cash rebates,” Cowen says.
Still, Texas is on a cliff that employs a voucher program. This is the “crown jewel” of voucher movements across the country, Enlow says. Tennessee lawmakers also approved the voucher program earlier this year. With its operational program in Texas, he says, it’s difficult for other red states to reject a voucher proposal.
He predicts that the already rapidly growing state will attract more families from surrounding states who want to use their vouchers. “The next real fight for this movement is how to bring this issue to more blue states,” Enlow says.
