Fight over school choice, teacher pay bumps expected to roil Texas House

AUSTIN — A year-long deadlock over whether Texas should join dozens of other states in creating a voucherlike program that helps pay for private schools could reach a climax in an education funding debate by the full House today.

Rural Republicans, backed by Democrats, are expected to offer a “ripper amendment” that would take education savings accounts out of the bill.

A close vote is expected, creating excitement and drama in educational and political circles.

The current special session, the year’s fourth, could come to an abrupt halt. Or Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the Senate’s presiding officer, could be on the doorstep of a major policy win.

Publicly funded, the education savings accounts – worth $10,500 a year per child in the House’s bill – would help pay for private school.

Proponents say parents frustrated with their kids’ public schools should have more options and that ESAs would force districts to improve children’s educational experience.

Opponents warn that taxpayer dollars would be siphoned from the public system, compounding its woes. Critics also warn that the amounts being offered wouldn’t be big enough for a low-income family to cover tuition at private schools.

In his ESA bill, Salado GOP Rep. Brad Buckley, the House’s chief schools policy writer, would wheel out billions from the state’s huge surplus to grant one-time bonuses of $4,000 to teachers and raise the “basic allotment,” or the per-pupil starting point for state funding to public schools, to $6,700 – an increase of $540. In future years, Buckley’s bill would index that to inflation.

Before debating Buckley’s bill, the House is expected to take up Panhandle GOP Rep. Ken King’s school safety constitutional amendment and enabling bill.

If approved by the Senate – which is not a certainty, given its strained relations with the House – and by voters, the package would direct $1.1 billion a year of rainy day dollars for school safety.

That would help fulfill the Legislature’s vow to help pay for hardening of campuses and deployment of armed security guards after the gun massacre at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary last year.

King’s package is likely to easily pass the House, setting up a potential confrontation with the Senate. It has passed a school funding bill, separate from that chamber’s ESA bill, that would double a school safety allotment, to $20 per child per year. Stipends of $15,000 per campus per year would increase to $30,000.

The ESA fight has highlighted divisions within the Texas GOP.

Together with a backlash against some House Republicans by movement conservatives upset over the failed impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton, the legislative battle is likely to spill over into March 5 Republican primary contests.

The conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, which has joined forces with Abbott to push through an ESA program, urged voters to contact state representatives and demand defeat of the ripper amendment.

In an email blast, foundation spokesman Brian Phillips blasted school groups opposed to ESAs as “reflexively obstinate and power hungry,” more concerned about themselves than kids.

“There is one data point on which everyone agrees,” Phillips wrote. “If given the opportunity, hundreds of thousands – potentially millions – of families would choose a different education option than the one being offered by their local public school. … The question is, why? Why are so many parents in Texas looking for alternatives?”

For months, public school advocates have warned the existing system is underfunded. A growing voucherlike program would compete for scarce dollars, they said. Most have rejected accepting a deal for more funding – as Buckley, Patrick and Abbott have offered – if it is contingent on creation of ESAs.

Ahead of Friday’s debate, the Texas State Teachers Association, which has about 65,000 members, said its stance remains the same.

In a bulletin to House members, the association noted that Buckley’s proposed $4,000 bonuses for full-time teachers, librarians, counselors and school nurses aren’t necessarily permanent.

Most of the basic allotment money goes toward payroll, so the higher pay could continue, Buckley has noted.

However, such assurances don’t impress the teacher association, a longtime foe of vouchers.

“No amount today is worth the lasting devastation a taxpayer-funded voucher would bring to Texas public schools,” TSTA lobbyist James Hallamek wrote in the bulletin to House members. Hallamek criticized the bill’s extra funding for charter school facilities and virtual education.

“We don’t like the voucher provisions of this bill, but we don’t like the rest of it, either,” TSTA spokesman Clay Robison explained in an interview. “We’re urging members to vote against all of it.”

Austin correspondent Aarón Torres contributed to this report.