Danelle Schwertner drove three and a half hours from her home in West Texas to join other school voucher opponents for a demonstration at the Texas Capitol on Saturday.
Schwertner, vice president of the school board, said a small, rural district like hers has a lot to lose if the Legislature approves a program that allows families to use taxpayer money to pay for private schools, including religious ones.
鈥淲e never have all the resources we need. We鈥檙e a very small school [district]. We do not have a large tax base where we鈥檙e at. We don鈥檛 have industry,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o we need all the funding we can get, and we do the best we can with what we鈥檝e got.鈥�
Schwertner and other public education advocates gathered for the 鈥淏oot Vouchers鈥� rally, just two days before the third special legislative session of the year got underway.
Homemade signs dotted the crowd. One, mimicking a Tinder profile, called on people to reject and 鈥渟wipe left鈥� on Republican Gov. Greg Abbott鈥檚 push to launch a voucher program in Texas.
Abbott called state lawmakers back to Austin to pass legislation on four priorities: border security, public safety, ending COVID restrictions and making education savings accounts available to all Texas students. Education savings accounts are a type of voucher.
鈥淭ogether, we will chart a brighter future for all Texas children by empowering parents to choose the best education option for their child,鈥� Abbott said in a statement the session.
But Nichole Abshire, who taught in public schools for 10 years, does not anticipate a brighter future if Texas introduces school vouchers.
鈥淚 think the push for vouchers will destroy public education as we know it,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 think we鈥檙e fortunate that we don鈥檛 have them here in Texas and we have a real shot at keeping them out.鈥�
A coalition of rural Republicans and Democrats in the Texas House historically have blocked efforts to pass school voucher legislation in the state. That happened again during the regular legislative session earlier this year. GOP state Rep. Ken King allowed his school finance bill to die after Republican senators tacked on a voucher program in a last-ditch effort to get this type of legislation to the governor.
鈥淚 am truly sorry HB 100 did not pass,鈥� King said in a back in May. 鈥淏ut in the end I believe students, teachers, and schools are better off with current law than they would be if we accept what the Senate is offering.鈥�
High cost of vouchers
Gov. Abbott has Texas can have school vouchers and also fully fund public schools. But educators and advocates in the Austin area aren鈥檛 buying it, in part because the Legislature has not raised the minimum amount of per student funding, known as the basic allotment, since 2019.
Bob Popinski is senior director of policy at Raise Your Hand Texas, a group that opposes school vouchers. He said Texas would need to increase the basic allotment, which is currently $6,160, by $1,100 just to make up for inflation.
"In addition to that, we're $4,000 below the national average on per student funding," he said. "So, we have a long way to go when it comes to funding our public schools."
Austin ISD School Board President Arati Singh blasted the governor's effort to create a voucher program, while funding for public schools is largely stagnant.
鈥淗ow absolutely irresponsible is it for us to drain and starve our public education system right now, just as artificial intelligence and other technologies are exploding and we need a well-educated workforce more than ever?鈥� she told the crowd at Saturday's rally. 鈥淚t makes no sense to me.鈥�
Austin ISD, like so many districts throughout Texas, a deficit budget this year because state funding isn鈥檛 keeping up with inflation. The district is going even deeper into debt to with a new state law that requires districts to have at least one armed officer at every school.
Bruce Gearing, superintendent of Leander ISD, said school vouchers will 鈥渁bsolutely鈥� affect funding for Texas public schools.
鈥淵ou can look to every other state that has done this across the nation and see how they started and where they are now,鈥� he told KUT ahead of the rally.
Gearing pointed to Arizona鈥檚 increasingly expensive school voucher program. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said in a in July that vouchers may cost taxpayers more than $943 million in 2024, potentially resulting in a budget shortfall for the state.
Gearing said he opposes vouchers in any form, especially as state funding for public education remains largely stagnant and private schools aren鈥檛 subject to the same standardized tests or other state oversight.
鈥淲e are going to advocate very strongly with our legislators and with any who will listen to strongly oppose any type of voucher, any type of scheme that will send public dollars to private schools,鈥� he said.
Where do Texans stand on vouchers?
Figuring out whether Texans support this type of program can be tricky because some polling shows school vouchers are not a top priority for voters in the state. Take a the University of Texas/Texas Politics Project conducted in August. Pollsters asked voters how important it was for state lawmakers to tackle a variety of educational issues in the upcoming special session.
Overall, only 26% said vouchers, educational savings accounts or other 鈥渟chool choice鈥� legislation was extremely important.
鈥淚f you break that down by party, what is probably most interesting is that while school choice legislation finishes at the bottom of the list of priorities for both Democrats and Texans overall, it doesn鈥檛 do much better among Republicans,鈥� Texas Politics Project Director James Henson said. 鈥淚t does better, but it finishes in the middle of the pack.鈥�
Thirty-four percent of Republicans said they considered voucher-type programs extremely important. That figure was 17% for Democrats.
Henson also pointed out that the way voters are asked about vouchers does have some impact on the level of support. When asking voters 鈥� "Do you support or oppose establishing a voucher, educational savings account (ESA), or other 鈥渟chool choice鈥� program in Texas?" 鈥� 29% of respondents strongly supported it and 18% strongly opposed.
But when asked 鈥� "Do you support or oppose redirecting state tax revenue to help parents pay for some of the cost of sending their children to private or parochial schools?" 鈥� strong support dropped to 21% and those who strongly opposed it increased to 29%.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a reason that advocates of vouchers or educational savings programs have chosen the term 鈥榮chool choice鈥� as their term of art for describing these programs,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he idea of choice generally polls pretty well and doesn鈥檛 have a lot of negative associations.鈥�
Henson said as soon as you start talking about tax revenue, which has a negative association, support goes down.
鈥淵ou can make the argument that what you are talking about here is a school choice program," he said. "You can also argue if you don鈥檛 tell people how you鈥檙e going to pay for it, you鈥檙e not giving them a complete version of what鈥檚 going on."
Ultimately, Henson and his colleague Joshua Blank find vouchers don鈥檛 have mass appeal.
鈥淰ouchers are a boutique issue, buoyed by a reasonably receptive audience, primarily Republicans, joined by a non-trivial minority of Democrats likely wearied by the impact of the pandemic on the practice and politics of public education, or by sustained local failures,鈥� they wrote in a Oct. 6 . 鈥淏ut the polish of public demand for vouchers that advocates apply to the issue isn鈥檛 evident in the polling.鈥�
The governor's rhetoric
While polling does not indicate widespread support for school vouchers in Texas, three UT/Texas Politics Project polls conducted over the last 18 months find less than a third of GOP voters held favorable views of K-12 public schools. Abbott鈥檚 push for school vouchers plays into that dissatisfaction.
鈥淥ur schools are for education, not indoctrination,鈥� Abbott said during his in January. 鈥淪chools should not be pushing a 鈥榳oke鈥� agenda period.鈥�
But David DeMatthews, an associate professor in the UT College of Education, said Abbott鈥檚 criticism of public schools is fairly new.
"And they鈥檙e his public schools," he said, "so the question should be to the governor is if schools are indoctrinating children as he鈥檚 claiming, then he鈥檚 been asleep at the wheel for a large segment of his career."
DeMatthews said it鈥檚 disappointing that anyone in statewide office would consistently attack public schools. He added the attacks are part of a nationwide push to privatize education. Political donors, such as former U.S. Education Secretary and are among those pushing that agenda.
DeMatthews said Abbott is making the case for vouchers by criticizing public schools because studies show vouchers do not improve student achievement.
鈥淎nd in the cases when kids return to the public schools, their test scores actually go back up," he said.
Previous studies of these types of programs in states such as Louisiana, Ohio and Indiana have , in general, students who use vouchers to go to private school do not perform as well on tests as their counterparts in public schools.
Popinski said there are a few things Texans can expect if the Legislature approves school vouchers.
"They can expect that there [will] not be enough high quality seats in our private schools," he said. "Texans can expect to have private school tuition increase like they've seen in other states once a voucher program has been enacted. And Texans can expect student achievement and student progress to be mixed at best."
Abbott has to call another legislative session if a voucher bill does not pass and even the primary challengers of Republicans who oppose vouchers.
And, although Abbott's special session agenda does not include a call to raise public education funding, the chair of the Senate Education Committee filed Monday to increase per student funding and teacher pay.
Republican state Sen. Brandon Creighton's proposal includes $975 million for basic allotment increases, but that still does not make up for inflation since it was last raised.
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