Private school voucher bill clears first test in Texas House

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​The Texas House Public Education Committee on Thursday voted in favor of a $1 billion spending cap for the first two years of a potential school voucher program and increasing by $395 the base amount of money public school districts receive for each student.

The changes to House Bill 2, the public school funding bill, and Senate Bill 2, the voucher proposal, will now go to the full House for further consideration. All Democrats on the committee voted against the voucher legislation.

Lawmakers revealed updated versions of both bills Monday, after days of public testimony last month. The committee was slated to discuss them Tuesday, but the panel rescheduled the meeting to Thursday, hours after the release of the new versions. Rep. Brad Buckley, the Republican chair of the committee, said he postponed it to give members additional time to review how the proposed school funding changes would affect their local districts.

While several TV stations broadcast the meeting, the committee did not stream it, drawing criticism from House Democrats. House rules this session require the streaming of public hearings but not formal meetings, which generally do not include public testimony.

Democrats argued that because of the significant interest in and potential impact of both bills, the public deserved the option to view Thursday’s meeting online if they could not make it in person. Hundreds of Texans showed up at the Capitol last month to testify on the voucher legislation, with the hearing going almost 24 hours. Most speakers at that hearing said they opposed the program.

The House’s proposed changes to the voucher plan went into Senate Bill 2, which passed the Senate in February. The House’s decision to propose the changes in the Senate’s bill and not its own proposal could potentially speed up communication between the chambers and bring about a final vote more quickly. If the revised bill passes the House — and the Senate agrees with the changes — the measure would go to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk for his signature.

The House and Senate’s voucher proposals differ when it comes to how much money students would receive, which applicants should take priority and how the program should accommodate students with disabilities — though lawmakers in both chambers have expressed support for one another’s efforts. Abbott on Thursday thanked both for their “tireless work” and said he looked forward to signing SB 2 into law.

Current state budget proposals set aside $1 billion for vouchers, which would allow parents to use taxpayer dollars to fund their children’s private school tuition. If final legislation creating vouchers includes the $1 billion cap, the state by law could not spend more money on the program even if more is available.

The cap proposal comes after critics raised concerns that lawmakers are downplaying the amount of money the state could spend on vouchers during the initial rollout. A budget analysis shows costs reaching nearly $5 billion by 2030.

“When you look at a bill that is projected to take billions and billions of more billions this biennium that we could use on our public school students,” said Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, “and billions more in the future when our schools are so far behind and school districts are having to make tough decisions of closing schools, this just makes no sense.”

Lawmakers on the committee also approved a change to the bill that would allow only U.S. citizens or people lawfully in the country to receive vouchers, a decision that could draw scrutiny as the proposal makes its way through the rest of the Legislature. Every student in the U.S. is entitled to a public education regardless of their immigration status — and the potential voucher program would rely on public dollars.

In addition, the new proposal would limit funding for students without disabilities or from wealthier households — a family of four making about $156,000 or greater — to only 20% of the program’s total budget until after the 2026-27 school year. It would also prioritize students who exit public schools over those who are already enrolled in private schools.

Those changes, however, still would not require private schools to accept certain students, which has raised concerns among public education advocates. In other states, voucher programs like the one Texas is proposing primarily benefit wealthier families who had already enrolled their children in private schools.

Lawmakers also advanced a new version of House Bill 2, the school funding measure. The initial proposal sought to increase the base amount of money districts receive to educate each student by $220. The updated version approved Thursday would increase that amount, referred to as the basic allotment, by $395. The bill would automatically increase the allotment every two years by tying it to property value growth, according to the committee’s summary of the potential changes.

HB 2’s potential changes could increase the state’s basic allotment to $6,555 in total for each student, with 40% directed to salaries for school staff. Higher salary increases would go to teachers with more than a decade of classroom experience. The base funding per student has been at $6,160 since 2019.

School districts say raising their base funding would offer them flexibility to address the unique needs of their campuses, as opposed to funds they can only use for specific purposes. The bulk of it flows toward salaries for educators and support staff. Districts also use the money to pay for essential services and goods, like electricity, insurance and water. Leftover money may fund other necessities like school supplies and building maintenance.

The bill also proposes the elimination of a 2023 “hold harmless” provision, which provides financial relief to school districts that lose funding due to state property tax cuts, a major source of revenue for public schools. Buckley, the chair, described phasing out the provision as a way to address inequity between property-wealthy districts and those that aren’t.

The provision has resulted in a small number of districts with high property values receiving significantly more money than others, added Paul Colbert, who chaired the Texas House’s Public Education Subcommittee on Budget and Oversight during the 1980s, in an interview with The Texas Tribune.

But John Bryant, D-Dallas, called the change in the bill “a matter of great distress” for some districts and sought assurance from Buckley that he would work to resolve the concern. Buckley said the committee would soon “begin work” to get the bill right and onto the House floor for debate.

Changes to House Bill 2 — which seeks to reduce the number of untrained teachers in Texas classrooms — also include increasing the runway districts have to get their teachers certified. All teachers in core classes would have to earn their certification by fall 2029.

Additionally, the revised bill would waive some of the fees that teachers have to pay for certain certificate programs. But it nixed a provision that would have offered financial incentives to teachers who enter high-quality training programs.

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