Texas Senate to debate the school program for vouchers – the Texas Tribune

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The Texas Senate is expected to discuss the creation of a school vouchers program on Wednesday before possible voting to give prior approval of the Senate 2 for prior approval after the discussion is completed. The bill will allow parents to use public dollars for taxpayers to fund the education of their children’s private school through a mechanism called savings bills for education.

The potential vote comes days after governor Greg Abut announced the topic of an emergency at his country’s address on Sunday, which allowed legislators to speed up the proposal early during the legislative session, which began last month and ended on June 2.

According to the recent proposal in the Senate, families can receive $ 10,000 a year per public in public dollars of taxpayers to finance their children’s education in accredited private school and other expenses such as textbooks, transport and therapy. The legislation will provide $ 11,500 per student for children with disabilities. It will also provide at least $ 2,000 a year to a home student at home participating in the program. Families will receive the money through state -run savings accounts.

If the Senate gives final approval of the school voucher legislation, the bill will move to the Texas House, where such legislation has repeatedly hit a brick wall two years ago. The house has not yet filed its own voucher proposal this year.

As the program would allow some families to choose which schools attend their children, Republicans usually call vouchers as a “choice of school”.

Texas budget experts have recently ended in their SB 2 fiscal analysis that public schools that receive money based on attendance may experience a reduction in funding because of students leaving the public education system to participate in the voucher program.

Abbott successfully launched a campaign against the village Republicans who helped kill vouchers’ legislation during the 2023 legislative session-with the help of record financial contributions from his deep pockets. With many republican anti-vouchers legislators no longer hold a position, senior civil servants have expressed confidence that a voucher bill will be implemented this year.

“We will make historical investments in our public schools, as well as we will have a school choice to pass this session, two things we can do that will not be in conflict with each other,” the newly elected spokesman of the Chamber Dustin Burrose, R-Lubbock, said on Tuesday while talking to Permian Basin Civic and Business Leaders in Austin.

Both the Texas House and the Senate suggested that $ 1 billion be canceled over the next two years to create savings bills for education, an increase of $ 500 million from what MPs offered for such a program two years ago. But this number of $ 1 billion can change when a legislative session is held.

According to SB 2, any child who is eligible to visit or already attend a public school can apply for the program. Thus, they can be enrolled in the State School Prior to K and families with children who already attend private schools. If the demand for savings accounts for education exceeds the available funding, the bill will retain the bigger part of the two -group students. One of these groups is children with disabilities. The other prioritized group is household children whose annual income is up to 500% of the federal poverty level. This would include any household with four people, earning less than $ 156,000. SB 2 defines this as a low -income household.

By 2030, the cost of the program can rise to over $ 4.5 billion, according to a fiscal analysis of the Senate Voucher Bill. In the analysis, budget experts predicted that half of about 350,000 students in Texas, who are currently enrolled in private schools, will apply for participation in the first year.

During a public hearing for the proposal last week, the debate largely focused on whether it would fulfill the promise of priority for families and children with low -income disabled.

Senator Brandon Creyton, a Republican of Conro, who is the author of the legislation, and other school vouchers, have greatly defended the bill, stating that it gives priority to working families, allows families to explore alternative educational opportunities outside public education and can They help to push public schools to perform better academic academic level to perform better academic data.

“The biggest form of accountability is parents who have the right to move their children to the educational environment that is best suited to them,” says Nathan Kunnen, the State Director of Texas for the pro-voucher Federation for Children. “This is an option that most low -income families do not have today. This is an option I didn’t have when I grew up. This bill will give them this freedom and every student in Texas should be able to take advantage. “

The bill, however, includes what some democratic legislators and advocates of public education consider it too generous a definition of “low -income household”. The bill also does not require private schools to comply with federal and state laws in respect of special education, from which public schools should comply with, such as the Law on the Education of People with Disabilities or Idea. Federal law, among other requirements, has long defended families and their children, working to provide students with disabilities receive in -depth grades and educational services.

“My mother has tried to get me into private schools before, but they said no. Since I’m in a wheelchair, they don’t want to do it, “said Felicita Pinon, a sixth grade student with cerebral palsy that testified with her mother Lizdelia, during a public hearing. “Public schools are the only place my siblings and I can go and feel involved.”

In countries that have already created vouchers programs, many of the children who take advantage come from more common families who already send their children to a private school. Families from poor communities use vouchers less than the more wealthy ones. As for academic results, studies in multiple countries show that vouchers do not consistently lead to improved standardized test results for low -income students, measuring republican staff of Texas, often relying on public education decisions. In some cases, the vouchers have led to steep academic downturns.

The Senate bill does not require participants to take the same state standardized tests that students from public schools adopt annually, which some opponents of vouchers and school staff claim to create an unfair playing field. The proposal requires students to pass a nationally recognized exam like SAT or ACT.