Texas committee moves school choice bill to help low-income families

By Bethany Blankley | The Center Square

The Texas Senate Education Committee has advanced SB 1968, introduced by state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston. The bill would create a $200 million education savings account program to help low-income families.

Funds could be used towards private school tuition and fees, the purchasing of textbooks or other instructional materials, tutoring, and education therapies costs. Funding for the program would come from both tax credit incentivized donations and appropriated funds. ESAs would not be funded by federal money, the state’s permanent school fund, or the available school, according to the bill’s language.

Dr. Richard Johnson, director of the Booker T. Washington Initiative at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, testified on behalf of the bill, saying it “gives low-income families the opportunity to get the education that best meets their child’s needs.”

“Children from families with more resources already have these choices – they can move to a school district that offers the programs they value, they can find private schools that are the right environment for their child, or they can hire therapists or tutors if their child needs special support,” he added.

Opponents say school choice programs such as ESAs divert money away from public schools.

In the 2019-20 school year, there were 5.49 million children enrolled in Texas’ K-12 public schools, according to the Texas Education Agency. The percentage of students who identified as economically disadvantaged in 2019-20 was 60%.

While a good first step, the nonprofit education organization Ed Choice notes that Texas has zero educational choice programs and is among the minority of states that do not have them.

The Texas GOP has prioritized school choice as part of its legislative platform but bills to advance them were previously thwarted by Republican lawmakers in the state legislature.

In 2013, several private school choice bills were introduced and went nowhere under a Republican-majority legislature. In 2015, SB4, which would have created a tax-credit scholarship program, passed the Senate but failed to get out of committee in the Republican-controlled House. It was added as an amendment to a school financing bill, HB 1759, which also failed to pass, Ed Choice notes.

“While other states continue to pass robust programs that fund students instead of systems, Texas lags behind when it comes to parental choice in education,” Randan Steinhauser, Texas Advisor – EdChoice, told The Center Square. “With more than 50,000 students on our charter school waitlist and the number of home-schoolers doubling in the state from 2020-2021, we know that parents are both desperate for alternative education options and are taking control of their child’s education. In situations where the local ISD is not the best fit for a child, parents should be able to use their hard-earned tax dollars to find an educational setting that meets the individual needs of their children.”

“School Choice for All” is the seventh legislative priority listed among eight proposed by the Republican Party of Texas to ensure that parents and guardians “are able to choose from public, private, charter, or homeschool options for their children’s education using tax credits or exemptions without government restraint or intrusion.”

When the Republican Party of Texas’ Legislative Committee reviewed roughly 7,400 bills proposed by Republican lawmakers earlier this year, none included school choice priorities.

It was not until the last day to file bills, on March 12, that Republicans Bettencourt and state Rep. Mays Middleton, R-Wallisville, filed companion ESA bills.

These bills are the only bills proposed this legislative session that fall within the Texas Republican Party’s educational choice priorities.