Public schools pay the price in push for vouchers

If Texas Gov. Greg Abbott gets his way this weekend, his sales pitch for private school vouchers will sound throughout churches mega and small on his “School Choice Sunday.”

Abbott directed church leaders to go to the pulpit in a call last month, saying, “Let them know how important this is to the moral fabric of the future of Texas.”

But to what end?

Late Thursday night, on the fourth day of the third special session of the year for the Texas Legislature, senators passedSenate Bill 1, authored by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe. It would give families $8,000 of taxpayer money to pay for private schools and other educational expenses such as uniforms, textbooks, tutoring and transportation.

The bill is the antithesis of conservative, costing a half billion dollars from the general revenue fund for the next two years — enough to pay for only about 60,000 students. This is just the start, and it could increase immediately, as the bill would allow general fund transfers. There are quite a few unknowns associated with the school voucher bill, a welfarefor-the-well-off, proclaimed as “God’s call,” a doomed experiment proven problematic by the Brookings Institution and others.

To become law, the bill needs approval by the Texas House, where Democrats and rural Republicans, whose school districts are often among their towns’ largest employers, have historically opposed vouchers.

But if vouchers aren’t passed during the third session, Abbott has threatened another special session and what he calls “the hard way,” supporting primary challengers against GOP members who don’t support vouchers.

The way the League of Women Voters of Texas, which has 3,000 statewide members, including 225 in San Antonio, voices its opposition to school vouchers is the right way.

“LWV Texas stands with teachers and supports public education. We are against vouchers in any form. Vouchers divert taxpayer dollars from public schools to pay for private school tuition and other vendors,” the League posted to X.

The League “has a strong, long-held, member-adopted position opposing vouchers in any form, including the method proposed in SB 1,” Madhu Sridhar, president of the League of Women Voters of San Antonio, said, explaining that the

League, which is nonpartisan, studies and adopts positions, then speaks with one voice.

Meanwhile, our state’s businesses, which rely on the crucial education that public schools provide, have been as quiet as a church mouse. Instead of advocating for an educated workforce, businesses are choosing partisan politics.

When I reached out to the Texas Association of Business for its position, its spokesperson Katie Zarate replied via email, “TAB is not weighing in on school vouchers.”

Vouchers were born as a workaround after the Brown v. Board of Education 1954 U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision to put an end to “separate but equal” educational facilities. On Thursday, state Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, a longtime champion for public education, tried to address discrimination, but his effort failed.

Abbott’s appeal to church leaders via tele-townhall on Sept. 19 included an eclectic lineup: Cornerstone Church Lead Pastor Matt Hagee; The R.O.C.K. Founder and Senior Pastor Dana Carson; two-time World heavyweight boxing champion and Olympic gold medalist George Foreman; U.S. Pastor Council Founder and President, Rev. Dave Welch; First Baptist Dallas Senior Pastor Robert Jeffress; and Diocese of Dallas Bishop Edward Burns.

While I’m sure each one of them, including Abbott, is focused on raising funds, maybe there’s a desire to actually help children and their parents. But we must believe the education experts who say vouchers will hurt our state’s approximately 5.4 million students and

350,000 teachers. We have to remember that Abbott has been holding public school funding, last increased in 2019, hostage.

And to what end, especially for our most vulnerable students? Those who live in rural communities won’t have access to private schools even with vouchers. Also left out of private schools will be students with disabilities, low grades, disruptive behavior, low family income or brown or Black skin color.

What will become of the students left behind in chronically underfunded, attendancebased funded, public schools that will be further squeezed when they lose even more students? When, as at San Antonio Independent School District, schools must be shuttered?

In the end, if Gov. Greg Abbott gets his way, the most vulnerable of students, the “fabric of Texas’ future,” will suffer.