Some Dallas Independent School District (DISD) trustees spoke out against a Texas voucher bill at a school board meeting last week, telling community members to reach out to their state representatives and voice opposition to school choice.
If enacted, the bill would allow taxpayer money to help parents pay for private education or homeschooling.
Senate Bill 8 includes language that empowers parents to “direct the moral and religious training of the parent’s child” and “make decisions concerning the child’s education.”
The proposed legislation further details processes whereby parents can review lesson materials and file complaints against school districts. It also reduces the amount of time spent on education involving gender or LGBTQ issues.
The bill would give students who leave a public school system and go to either a private school or homeschool $8,000 of taxpayer money via an educational savings account that can be spent on tuition and class materials, including textbooks.
Those already students enrolled in a private school would not be eligible.
In addition, school districts with fewer than 20,000 students would get $10,000 to make up for lost state funding for each student the district loses for the first two years after the student unenrolls.
Trustee Maxie Johnson said at Thursday’s meeting that he would charter a bus to go to the state capitol on April 4 to protest the bill.
Johnson claimed that most of the people supporting the bill are those who can already afford private education.
“If you can afford your kids’ education, why would you try to take money from public schools to give to private schools?” he asked during the meeting.
State Sen. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe), who authored the bill, said Wednesday, according to AXIOS, that the educational savings account would not affect public schools.
“There’s no offense meant toward our public schools,” Creighton said, according to AXIOS. “We’re talking about our Texas parents, our moms and dads and their kids, and the expectations for them for the best education, the best life, the best opportunities they can achieve.”
In Texas, state funding of education is tied to the individual student in any given district. The taxpayer money essentially follows the student to the school system that is actually educating them.
Trustee Dustin Marshall said the bill would very likely pass in the state Senate.
“It’s going to upend the public education system in Texas,” he claimed, advising community members to contact their state senators. “It does matter.”
Trustee Camile White echoed Marshall’s comment, stating, “We need our public schools because I don’t think they have our best interests at heart here.”
The trustees’ opposition to school choice comes at a time when DISD has been struggling to provide acceptable student outcomes, despite the hard work of its dedicated teachers. Additionally, both Dallas and DISD have been steadily losing residents, even as the surrounding municipalities and their school systems are growing.
The district’s latest Texas Education Agency (TEA) accountability report found that only 41% of students in the 2021-2022 school year scored at grade level on the STAAR exam and almost 20% of the graduating Class of 2022 did not graduate in four years. This is despite DISD spending more than $16,000 per student from its swollen $2.2 billion budget that year.
Tania Hernandez, a member of the Alliance AFT teachers union, said during the public comment section of the meeting that the bill was part of a “hostile takeover by the state,” alluding to the recently announced TEA takeover of the Houston Independent School District.
A hearing was held Wednesday at the state Senate Committee of Education, where both opponents and proponents of the bill spoke out. Michael Olson, a Catholic bishop from Fort Worth, spoke in favor of the bill.
“Parental choice programs provide hope for the thousands of families who need better access to personalized educational options and are currently denied access to their tax dollars for exercising this natural right,” he said, per The Texas Tribune.