School Voucher Committee Isn't So Sure About a Possible Voucher System in Texas

The special House committee established to study school vouchers hasn’t exactly come out in support of them, although a couple members are vocally pro-voucher.

Its report, released on Aug. 10, recommends several requirements for a voucher system, in the case one is adopted – a big if. But it mostly recommends other measures with broader support: increasing the money going to public schools, paying teachers more, and reworking the state’s broken accountability and student testing systems.

The Select Committee on Educational Opportunity & Enrichment, as it was styled, did get Gov. Greg Abbott’s stymied voucher proposal back on the House radar, after the lower body decisively rejected it last spring. Abbott staked a great deal of political capital on vouchers, a scheme to allow parents to take money out of the public school system to pay for private school expenses. He’s expected to call a special session in October to once again try to get the measure through the legislature.

The special committee heard hours of testimony on the topic, which it calls “parental choice.” It recommended that if a voucher program is approved it prioritize “high need students” and receive only a “finite appropriation” from the General Revenue Fund. Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins wrote in an addendum that any private schools using voucher funds should be held to the same accountability measures as public schools – something that voucher proponents don’t want. Rep. Harold Dutton Jr. said he would not support any proposal that would encourage vouchers.

Austin Rep. Gina Hinojosa, also a fierce opponent of the concept, refused to sign the committee report. “There are some recommendations outlined in the Select Committee Report that could result in damage to our Texas public education system and that conflict with our constitutional duty to ‘support and maintain an efficient system of public free schools,’” she wrote, referring to the likely consideration of vouchers in an upcoming special session. “For this reason, I am not signing.”