Culture wars
Fracas over class, religion could have lasting effect
The fate of education funding and bathroom policies for transgender children hangs in limbo as lawmakers struggle in a session marked by contentious culture battles.
AUSTIN — The fate of millions of dollars in education funding and school bathroom policies for transgender children hung in limbo Monday as lawmakers braced for the last full week of a legislative session marked by power grabs over contentious cultural battles in the Republicancontrolled Legislature.
State lawmakers are set to adjourn May 29, but they have yet to resolve issues that have driven a wedge between the two chambers. The continued infighting, which often involves social issues like religion and class conflicts, could affect millions of public school students or spark a special session that could keep lawmakers in Austin into the summer.
Among the issues hanging in the balance is a short-term fix to the state’s beleaguered school finance system that funds the education of 5.3 million children. Just after midnight Monday, the Texas Senate scrapped much of a House plan to revise how the state funds education, replacing it with a controversial
school voucher program for children with disabilities.
The 12:50 a.m. vote marks the second time in two months the chamber has approved legislation giving parents education savings accounts, referred to as ESAs, to use public school dollars to subsidize student tuition at a private school. The Senate added the plan to House Bill 21 despite fervent opposition from House members who say the bill takes money away from public schools and constitutes a poison pill on legislation that would otherwise pour more than $1.5 billion into public education. In its current form, the bill would add about $500 million to the system.
Vouchers pin school choice advocates, including U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, against defenders of public schools out of the belief that applying a free-market mentality to public education would allow people to escape lowperforming public schools and increase competition. Voucher opponents say the idea is a ploy to privatize education by siphoning funding to private and parochial institutions.
“Some people have built this into some kind of monster,” said Sen. Larry Taylor, the Friendswood Republican who sponsored the bill. He added that the House’s opposition to vouchers is unwarranted.
“It’s like this little ESA mouse running around, and this elephant is like, ‘Oh, oh my God,’ freaking out about it and it’s tiny,” said Taylor, who estimates around 5,000 of the state’s 5.3 million public school students would use the voucher in his bill.
‘We have to want to’
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a strong supporter of vouchers, said Monday he was willing to go along with a House plan to push back the official start date of an A-F school and district grading scale until 2019.
“As I said last week, it is hard for me to believe any Texas lawmaker would vote against a half billion dollars for public schools, as well as voting against children with disabilities, simply to oppose school choice,” Patrick said in a statement.
Opposition to a school voucher program is strong in the House, whose members voted overwhelmingly earlier this session to block any public funds from going to ESAs or similar initiatives.
“I don’t see a path forward for House Bill 21 at this point,” said Rep. Gary VanDeaver, a New Boston Republican who serves on the House Public Education Committee.
The panel’s chairman, Dan Huberty, R-Humble, said he was “very disappointed” the Senate stripped much of the House’s version of the bill originally meant to begin changing a school funding formula the Texas Supreme Court ruled was constitutional, though Byzantine and in need of repair.
“We have to want to be able to do this. Can’t is not an option. That word shouldn’t be in our vocabulary. It’s won’t,” Huberty said, adding he plans to announce the House’s response to the Senate changes Tuesday.
The bill likely to make the most movement on the school funding formula is Senate Bill 2144, which would create a 15-member commission to study how best to change or rewrite the state’s school funding formula before the 2019 session. The Senate passed the bill earlier this month and the House tentatively approved it Monday on a voice vote.
New rules possible
Legislators this session may not agree on how to fund schools, but they could be on their way toward creating new statewide rules that would require public schools to provide single-stall bathrooms and locker rooms to students who, for whatever reason, do not want to use facilities designated by “biological sex.”
The measure is the product of a national wave of GOP legislation focused on transgender people’s bathroom use. On Monday, the House voted 94-51 to approve Senate Bill 2078, legislation regarding emergency disaster plans for schools, with the bathroom amendment attached. Rep. Chris Paddie, the Republican from Marshall who authored the amendment, said it would allow all students access to a single-stall bathroom or empty multi-stall facility, including those who are shy, have a colostomy bag or have other reasons they might want privacy. Democrats said the bill would discriminate against transgender students and make them targets for harassment by forcing them to use separate bathrooms.
The measure is not nearly as broad as Patrick wanted, as he had made legislating a sex-specific bathroom policy in state government buildings, colleges and schools a priority this year worthy of a special session. House Speaker Joe Straus implied Sunday that SB 2078 was as far as the House would go on the matter.
The bill now goes back to the Senate, which could accept the House’s so-called compromise or reject it and call for a conference committee. Abbott has said he wants to sign some kind of “bathroom bill” this year.