Texas school choice advocates confident plan will still pass Legislature. Here’s why | Opinion
I’ve lived in Texas long enough to know that when it comes to policymaking, the end of the regular legislative session is seldom really “the end.” It sometimes just signals the true beginning of the political battle.
Because if the governor wants something to happen, he’ll recall legislators however many times is necessary to satisfy his priorities.
And given the political capital Gov. Greg Abbott has spent over the last year promoting school choice, the consensus seems to be that he is not going to allow legislators to leave Austin for good without some sort of education reform bill on his desk.
There is less consensus, however, on what such a bill might look like.
Corey DeAngelis, a senior fellow with the American Federation for Children and a national school-choice advocate, is optimistic.
He believes Texas will follow the lead of other states such as Florida and Indiana, which have both passed expansive school choice programs this year, to include vouchers for qualifying families to use at any school that will take them.
Vouchers, or education savings accounts as advocates in Texas and some other states like to call them, are a central part of Abbott’s effort and would provide an avenue for families to redirect the tax dollars they pay into public school systems to alternative education options, including private, religious and homeschooling.
DeAngelis, who testified in favor of ESAs before the Senate in March, points to poll after poll indicating a dramatic increase in support for ESAs and other school choice programs (as high as 75 percent of Texas school parents according to one survey), and a tanking of confidence in public schools.
He is confident that Abbott’s commitment to the effort should ensure its ultimate success. Even states with Democratic leadership have passed broad school choice efforts, he insisted, because the concept — even voucher programs — has a broad and bipartisan appeal.
And while opponents including some rural lawmakers in the governor’s party, may slow it down, “they can’t stop the wave,” DeAngelis added.
Opposition has come predictably from Democrats who believe public tax dollars should support only public school systems, regardless of their performance and outcomes. But rural Republicans pose the most serious threat to a universal ESA program.
Their arguments are at best utterly perplexing. They insist that school choice programs are irrelevant to many rural communities where private schools are few and far between. But they also contend that any kind of educational competition will decimate rural public schools and drain them of funds.
This cognitive dissonance aside, school choice supporters were not able to win over rural conservatives in the Texas House during the regular session. Doing so in a third special session will be essential to any bill’s success, and that means compromise.
That’s why Austin Prochoko of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank and advocacy group in Austin, believes that any school choice effort will be wrapped into a broad educational reform bill.
“The goal of an ESA program is to improve the whole education system of Texas,” Prochoko told me. But other educational issues — teacher salaries, testing reforms, and programs to address learning and achievement gaps — will be on the bargaining table.
The timing of the third session may also play a role in the ultimate nature and breadth of any education reform legislation.
Oddly enough, conservative legislators may have Ken Paxton to thank for that.
Whispers from Austin suggest that the attorney general’s impeachment trial is likely to delay a third special session until at least late September, giving political groups like DeAngelis’ and grassroots organizers time to marshal resources and even line-up primary challenges to Republicans who oppose the governor’s key legislative priority.
One former legislator I spoke with suggested the proximity of a third session to candidate-filing deadlines could be an opportunity.
Aaron Smith, director of education reform at the libertarian-leaning Reason Foundation, seems to agree.
“Either pass a school choice bill that all families can access or go home to your constituents and explain why you [blocked] something the majority of voters support,” he said.
“I think they’ll rise to the occasion,” he added.
One thing seems clear: The momentum from earlier this year has dissipated some, but the school choice wave hasn’t crashed before reaching Texas.
Legislators still have a good chance of getting something meaningful passed, even if it’s not the universal ESA program many supporters envisioned.
This story was originally published July 18, 2023 at 5:34 AM.
