“It’s what’s best for a very select few”: Some Texans are skeptical about vouchers as they near the finish line

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MIDLAND — As the Texas House of Representatives’ debate on whether to create a private school voucher program dragged into the early hours of Thursday, many school leaders, career educators and parents braced themselves.

A mom worried about families like hers, whose kids go to public school. A private school’s president refrained from celebrating when lawmakers finally voted in favor of the measure. One former public school teacher who stayed awake as long as she could watching the vote was disappointed with the result.

“Ultimately, this voucher program is not what is best for the 5 million excess Texas public school students,” said Amber Davidson, a Midland resident and mom of two public school students. “It's what's best for a very select few.”

The Texas House, under immense political pressure from Gov. Greg Abbott, voted 86-61 to approve a bill that will spend $1 billion to create education savings accounts, a form of vouchers families can use to pay for their children’s private schooling. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the Texas Senate’s leader, has proposed adopting the House bill, which would eliminate the need to reconcile the differences between each chamber’s voucher proposals and bring the program closer to becoming law.

The House’s longstanding resistance to vouchers, led for years by Texas Democrats and a coalition of Republicans from rural and industrial communities, cracked on Thursday. Many opponents were booted from office during the 2024 primary season as part of a multimillion-dollar campaign driven by Abbott and largely funded by wealthy donors.

Residents across the state said they worry the proposal will take away money that could have gone to deficit-plagued public school districts needing help to keep up with their rising operational expenses.

Angela Cardenas, an instructional coach at the Frenship Independent School District, west of Lubbock, and a former public school teacher, would have preferred that the Legislature had either used the $1 billion for the voucher program to bolster public education, or let Texans decide directly at the ballot box whether they wanted vouchers, a proposition lawmakers struck down Wednesday night.

She said she fears the voucher program will lead to fewer students attending public schools, which would result in less funding for them. More than 90,000 children could participate in the first two years of the House’s voucher program. Texas has more than 5.5 million public school students.

She also worried that families who want to participate in the voucher program wouldn’t be guaranteed a seat at a private school. While the House’s voucher program would be open to most Texas schoolchildren, the bill does not require private schools to change their admission practices to accept program participants.

Davidson, the Midland resident, doesn’t believe the voucher program will greatly help her community, either. She hopes the push for vouchers won’t stop lawmakers from supporting public education, especially in her town. Midland ISD, where Davidson’s children attend junior high and high school, passed a $41 million budget deficit last year.

“I think ultimately we're giving money to people who already can afford to send their kids to our private school, who have made that decision and choice,” she said.

Even though private schools would be among the beneficiaries of a Texas voucher program, Gregory Anderson, the president of a private school in Midland, said he wanted to wait and see how the program works.

Midland Christian School, the 1,300-pupil faith-based school under Anderson's leadership, is at capacity. There is a waitlist to attend, and the requirements are rigorous. Applicants must demonstrate they align with the school’s religious tenets and fulfill its academic requirements.

Anderson said he would support any bill that helps education institutions in Texas, whether it is public, private, charter or nonprofit. But he did not believe his school would immediately benefit from the bill.

“It may eventually put us into a position where it could help families who want to be part of our school, but it probably would be a while before that actually plays out,” he said.

In Lufkin, St. Patrick Catholic Classical School is one of three religion-based private schools serving Angelina County. Nearly half of its students come from low-income families, which can make tuition a burden, said Candice Halls, the school’s finance and operations executive. The money families would get from participating in the House’s voucher program would cover 100% of tuition at St. Patrick, she added.

“I have seen their burden of wanting a faith-based education for their student, yet they struggle to pay the tuition,” Halls said. “This will provide a lot of relief to them.”

As to how the creation of a voucher program would benefit the school moving forward, that has yet to be determined. Halls, who has been working to market the school more to the surrounding area, said switching schools is a difficult choice for families. Plus, she said, there is still a lot of uncertainty around vouchers, how they would work and their potential benefits. She thinks the impacts will vary by region.

As someone who worked in public schools before starting at St. Patrick, she said she understands some Texans’ fears.

School officials in the Permian Basin, Texas’ top oil-producing region, said they were ready for the fighting over vouchers to stop, and the work to begin. Chris Stanley, board president of the Ector County School District, said he wants to see the vouchers he’s heard so much about for years put to the test.

“I hope they put guardrails [on Senate Bill 2],” Stanley said. “I fear the comments that are out there, that this is only a tax credit for the rich. Well, legislators, since you're the ones making these decisions, prove to me it's not, prove to me that you are going to help some of the weakest students who are in the greatest need with this program.”

Lawmakers defend their vote on vouchers

All but two Republican representatives voted for the measure. The two Republican nay-votes were from East Texas: Reps. Dade Phelan of Beaumont and Gary VanDeaver of New Boston.

VanDeaver said he has long believed vouchers would be detrimental to Texas. And his constituents agreed, he said.

“The majority — as was evident in my last primary — of my constituents support my opposition on this matter,” VanDeaver said.

Vouchers’ impact on public schools’ finances won’t be as noticeable in the beginning, as it won’t actively taking money from them. State funding for the program will come from a pot of money that’s different from the one that finances public schools. However, public schools will lose funding for every student who leaves to enroll in the voucher program. VanDeaver also wondered what decisions the state would make about public schools and the voucher program’s funds if the economy stumbles in the future.

Phelan, in a statement, said his vote was based on several factors, including the impact this legislation could have on the state budget and public education funding as a whole.

“Ultimately, my vote was about listening to the people of House District 21,” he wrote. “Time and again, my constituents have expressed their strong support for our public schools and concerns about diverting state resources away from them. I heard you — and I voted [for] my district.”

North of Lufkin in Nacogdoches, former Rep. Travis Clardy was ousted from his seat in 2024 after publicly opposing vouchers. Rep. Joanne Shoffner, who was a vocal supporter of school choice, took over the seat this year and voted for vouchers. She said most of her constituents support the creation of education savings accounts.

“Parents want the freedom to choose what is best for their kids,” she said.

In the hours after the vote, many rural lawmakers who said they opposed the bill explained why they helped pass it, noting that their vote afforded them a chance to negotiate changes.

Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, said he voted begrudgingly to pass the bill. In a social media post on Thursday, he said some changes he recommended and were adopted, including annual public audits and requiring schools to be operational for two years before becoming eligible for the vouchers, improved the proposal.

“Allowing this bill to move forward unchanged would be a disservice to the very people I represent,” Darby said.

Rep. Brooks Landgraf, R-Odessa, who also voted in favor of the bill, said the version the House deliberated had sufficient protections in place to shield public schools that experience enrollment changes. In a statement sent Thursday, he underscored that the House on Wednesday also passed a separate bill that would direct $7.7 billion to public schools. The bill will increase teacher pay and the money schools get for each of their students.

“For my district, this means more funding, more resources, and more stability for our schools,” he said.

Rep. Trent Ashby, of Lufkin, was another vocal opponent of vouchers in 2023 who voted for the measure. A press release from Ashby echoed Landgraf’s sentiment.

“Instead of sitting idly by and allowing flawed legislation to pass through the legislative process, I felt compelled to do everything in my power to improve the bill,” Ashby said in his statement.

Kristi Gay, the Lufkin ISD board chair, believes Ashby’s decision to support vouchers allowed him to press for other agenda items that would benefit public schools — namely, more money for public schools.

Gay’s career was not in education, but banking, and said more funding would support the more than 7,000 children who attend Lufkin schools. She said she wanted to look further into what benefits public schools had won from the political negotiations.

“That's the only thing that we have some measure of control over: whatever is allocated to us,” Gay said. “Then our work begins to see how we can best use that to improve our district.”

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