S.A. rep at odds with fellow Dems over vouchers
Barbara Gervin-hawkins is walking a fine line.
Next Monday, the Texas Legislature begins a special session called by Gov. Greg Abbott to address one of his major unfulfilled objectives: the creation of a statewide school-voucher program.
Gervin-hawkins, an East Side-based, four-term state representative, is simultaneously joining her fellow Democrats in expressing a personal opposition to vouchers and signaling to Republicans that she’s willing to compromise on the issue.
Her stance is a source of friction for the House Democratic delegation, which has prided itself on holding the line against persistent GOP efforts to siphon taxpayer money from public schools and put it into private ones.
Gervin-hawkins is the founder of the George Gervin Academy, a San Antonio charter school, and serves as vice chair of the House’s Select Committee on Educational Opportunity & Enrichment.
Texas Republican leaders this year have held a key Democratic priority — increasing teacher pay and bumping up the perstudent allotment for public schools — as leverage in their bid to approve a voucher program.
In recent months, Gervin-hawkins repeatedly has indicated that she’s willing to bargain with the GOP.
“I’m not supportive of vouchers, so let’s make that clear,” Gervin-hawkins said Tuesday. “But what I am supportive of is common-sense outcomes; creating the win-win.
“Recognizing where we are as Democrats, in the minority, and assessing the fact that many of our schools need additional resources, the teachers who need higher salaries so they can pay these higher rents and/or mort “the gages, so I look at it holistically.”
By searching for a compromise on a deeply contentious issue for which many elected officials see no neutral ground, Gervin-hawkins appears to be balancing two constituencies.
There’s the constituency in her overwhelmingly Democratic district that opposes vouchers. There’s also the constituency of Republican leadership in the state Capitol, which could potentially boost her standing in the Legislature if she works with them on this issue.
Her position puts her at odds with fellow Democrats such as Trey Martinez Fischer, the dean of the Bexar County delegation, and the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.
The Martinez Fischer strategy is that Democrats should wait until vouchers are off the table before they consider any negotiations on education issues.
Despite their chronic position as the minority party in Texas, Democrats have good reason for confidence on this issue.
Vouchers have been supported by the last three governors of this state (all of them Republicans) over a period of nearly 29 years, and yet those governors consistently failed to get a voucher program through the Legislature.
In April, the Texas House, by an 86-52 vote, approved a budget amendment prohibiting the use of state funds for vouchers. Twenty-four Republicans joined Democrats to pass that amendment.
House Democratic caucus is against vouchers,” Martinez Fischer said.
“We resent the fact that the governor and certain Republican leaders, like (Lt. Gov.) Dan Patrick, would hold teacher pay raises hostage, would fail to invest in our schools; to use those tools as leverage to advance a voucher scheme is really dishonest with the public.”
Gervin-hawkins, however, has expressed a willingness to consider a five-year voucher pilot program, which she says would enable lawmakers to assess the impact that vouchers will have on our education system.
While voucher advocates frequently define the issue as one of school choice for parents, the choice created by vouchers really rests with private schools, not with parents.
Private schools get to pick and choose whoever they want to admit. They’re not accountable to the state in the way that public schools are. They’re also not readily accessible to people living in rural communities.
Studies have also called into question the common Republican assumption that vouchers will enhance student academic performance.
For example, a 2017 U.S. Department of Education evaluation of a voucher program in the District of Columbia found that students using vouchers performed worse in math and reading than those who received vouchers.
Gervin-hawkins, however, doesn’t seem to share the concerns of her fellow Democrats when it comes to vouchers.
“I don’t believe vouchers will destroy public education,” she said. “I believe that the publiceducation apparatus is so large, so important, you can’t just destroy it.
“I don’t see a great exodus of traditional public going to private. There are things that the private situation doesn’t offer that the public school does.”
The Texas Constitution mandates that the state Legislature should “make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”
At a time when Texas ranks 40th among states in per-student spending for public schools, no one can credibly argue that our state is making “suitable provision” for public education.
Diverting some of those resources to exclusive private schools will only make things worse.