School choice faces a fight
Key senators still undecided about the bill in its current form
AUSTIN — Despite calls from Senate leaders to give their school choice plan a fair shot this year — a plea directed at the voucher-averse House — their most formidable challenge this session may be getting enough Republican support to get the proposal out of the upper chamber.
As in the last session, state Sen. Larry Taylor’s school choice legislation has the forceful backing Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who considers it a top priority, but key senators remain undecided on the bill in its current form.
Taylor, a Friendswood Republican, likely has enough votes to pass Senate Bill 3 out of the chamber’s Committee on Education, which he chairs and where he serves with several school choice backers. However, he lacks support from a sufficient number of his GOP colleagues to bring the measure to the Senate floor for a vote.
Senate rules require the approval of 19 of the chamber’s 31 members before a bill can come up for floor debate and a vote. Even with a 20-11 GOP majority, Taylor presently needs as many as five more Republican votes in the face of
solid Democratic opposition to get a floor vote.
“We have more time than we did last time,” Taylor said, adding that he has been in talks with several House members. “I’m trying to meet a lot of folks’ concerns. We’ve got some time to work with a number of them and spend some time explaining it.”
Some of the earliest negotiations are likely to come from within the Senate GOP caucus, whose 20 members easily can approve their priority bills if they vote as a bloc.
However, Sen. Kel Seliger, an Amarillo Republican, said his mostly rural district has only a few private schools.
“There’s a question of money, and where the money comes from and what its effect is,” Seliger said. “We’re going to hold public schools to pretty rigorous assessments, but not private schools or parochial schools, which are going to take the same money.”
Accountability concerns
A specific concern of his is a provision in Taylor’s bill that would exempt private schools receiving public money from complying with state education laws not already in effect by January 2017.
“Any requirement we make of public schools, in any area, does not apply,” Seliger said. “Just exactly what does that mean?”
Taylor’s efforts to shepherd his bill through the legislative process also will test whether a majority of lawmakers in the House, where school choice traditionally has been opposed by Democrats and rural Republicans, is willing even to discuss the issue.
“Many of us in the
House are concerned about giving taxpayer dollars to schools that are not held accountable for their financial and academic performance,” said Rep. Dan Huberty, a Republican from Humble, who chairs the House Committee on Public Education. “If both public and private schools are getting taxpayer funds, why should only public schools be subject to accountability measures? The House Committee on Public Education, and my colleagues in the Texas House of Representatives have a responsibility to do what is best for our constituents and our students, no one else.”
Announced last month, Taylor’s Senate Bill 3 would allow parents to create education savings
accounts to pay for certain expenses related to their child’s education. Those expenses would include tuition and fees at private schools, online educational courses and other materials for home-schooled students and private tutoring.
The accounts would be available to families at all income levels.
Each year, the state would deposit into their accounts a set amount of funds, adjusted for the total annual income of the household. Students living below the federal poverty level could qualify for 75 percent of Texas’ perstudent allocation, or an estimated $6,000 per student each year. The rest of the money would go back to the school district where the student otherwise
would be enrolled. The bill would allow students with disabilities, regardless of family income, to receive 90 percent of the public school allotment. Students in families who live above the federal poverty level could get 60 percent.
Taylor’s bill also would create a tax credit scholarship program that would provide money to parents who move their children from traditional public schools and enroll them in charter, private or home schools.
The measure would give a tax credit to businesses that contribute to the fund, as well.
Taylor’s bill differs in many respects from school voucher bills the Legislature considered in past sessions, when Senate
Republicans attempted a time-intensive, piecemeal approach. In 2015, for example, the Senate’s tax credit proposal passed the chamber with about a month to spare before the session was scheduled to end. It was assigned to a House committee but never got a hearing date.
The Senate also passed a separate bill that would have ordered the Texas Education Agency to conduct a study on implementing educational savings accounts. It died in another House committee.
Taylor’s bill could apply to about 15,000 students statewide in its first year of implementation, Patrick said. There are an estimated 5.2 million students in Texas public schools.
“That is one quarter of 1 percent. So, when people say the sky is falling and that we are undermining education, no we are not,” he said. “We are providing choice for parents who are not wealthy enough to choose a school for their child.”
‘Deserve more funding’
Public education advocates have condemned Taylor’s proposal as the latest attempt to pass a wide-ranging voucher program in Texas.
“If Dan Patrick and his followers wanted to give all students and their parents a meaningful educational choice, they would more adequately fund public education, so that children of all economic backgrounds would have a full menu of academic offerings and electives in their neighborhood public schools,” said Texas State Teachers Association President Noel Candelaria.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott long has supported school choice. At a rally on the Capitol steps earlier this month, he urged lawmakers to send Taylor’s Senate Bill 3 to him and promised to sign it. He lauded charter schools in his State of the State address last week, saying they “do a great job and deserve more funding.”
However, the governor did not place Taylor’s legislation on his list of emergency items, which would allow lawmakers to vote on the issue promptly. They still can consider the bill in committee to debate the merits of different proposals, but without Abbott’s emergency blessing, legislators must wait more than a month before either chamber can vote on passage.
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