By the March 10 bill filing deadline at the Texas Capitol, about 30 pieces of legislation had been introduced by several Republican lawmakers in the name of so-called “school choice.” These bills, if signed into law, have the potential to upend our public school system causing countless unintended consequences.
While these proposals’ authors and their supporters have dressed them up with marketing terms like “choice” and “parental empowerment,” there has, so far, been very little discussion about their real implications.
The mere fact that dozens of plans have been offered reveals the underlying truth that, even after decades of talk around this issue, it remains a legislative chimera — a series of hastily assembled ideas clearly more focused on a political power grab than a consistent, thoughtful and data-driven approach to the alleged end goal.
As the heart of the 2023 legislative session approaches, it’s time for a reality check.
First, let’s call this what it really is. This is not “school choice.” It’s politics, and it just may be the largest, and least accountable, entitlement ever created in Texas history. In an effort to sidestep constitutional issues with direct payments to private religious schools, those who have filed and are supporting these bills have turned to a good old-fashioned wealth transfer.
And while they’ve built in provisions to attempt to blunt the speed at which this entitlement will grow, within two years of passage, the state of Texas could be taking more than $8 billion from Peter (public schools) to pay Paul (private schools).
The math is simple: Currently, there are approximately 250,000 students in private schools and another 750,000 in home schools. Under the Senate’s priority school choice bill, that represents $8 billion in entitlement payments before any new individuals even leverage the program.
If any lawmaker had run for election seeking to utilize 5% of state revenues for a new system of welfare, they assuredly wouldn’t have won their primaries, but that is exactly what is being discussed.
Besides giving people a new government check with essentially no oversight, have the bill sponsors considered what is going to happen to their Robin Hood school districts?
This new entitlement program would certainly take more students out of public schools without any offset for a school district’s property wealth, causing their Robin Hood payments to the state to increase significantly.
And while lawmakers have spent the last several sessions banning critical race theory, defining who can participate in what sports and even outlawing the use of sharia law in our courts, they stand on the precipice of funding student attendance at private schools that categorically celebrate the opposite of their policy positions.
Is anyone ready for CRT Academy? Or Sharia Prep?
What about private and home schools that teach inarguably dangerous and radical ideologies that are antithetical to the things to what most Texans believe? As an example: Ohioans were outraged to learn their state’s education entitlement program funded a network of Nazi home schools. A Kansas teacher has facetiously suggested starting a CRT school with funds from a voucher initiative being discussed there.
What about the current cultural debate on what materials and books are in our schools? Are lawmakers ready to use potentially billions of tax dollars to fund education that not only has them available for kids, but actually features these very materials in their curriculum?
The stakes are much higher than saying this is about choice. Lawmakers endorsing this effort are creating what may be the largest system of welfare in state history, exacerbating the impact of Robin Hood on schools and potentially funding the proliferation of CRT as well as other undesirable ideologies.
And there are truly no good, or constitutional, solutions for basically any of these unintended consequences for lawmakers on many third-rail issues for their voters. Finally, none of these voucher bills are supported by data saying that they actually help students who need it the most — and that should be what is driving our decisions.
While I’m reminded of the scripture, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” lawmakers supporting this legislation need to stop and truly consider what they’re doing. Because if it’s not clear now, it will be when the mail pieces start dropping during their next primaries.
Dustin Marshall is a Dallas ISD board trustee for District 2. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.
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