Texas House Kills School Choice Bill
Jose Nino
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The Texas State House recently killed school choice legislation. State Representative Brad Buckley introduced House Bill 1, an omnibus legislation that mainly consisted of billions of dollars in teacher pay raises and more school funding. That said, this bill featured a school choice provision.
The school choice legislation in question would have created an education savings account of roughly $10,500 available to any child. Children who are homeschooled would be eligible for $1,000.
On top of that, the plan also featured pay raises for teachers. In the first year, full-time teachers, nurses, counselors, and librarians would receive a $4,000 bonus, while part-time employees would receive $2,000. In the second year, the continuation of pay increases would be arranged by local districts using the state government’s basic allocation process.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott made the advocacy of school choice a major legislative priority in the current legislative session. However, the House, which has scuttled school choice legislation on multiple occasions, voted to remove the school choice provision of the bill completely.
State Representative John Raney authored the amendment to strip school choice out of this bill.
State Representative Tony Tinderholt rejected the amendment by invoking a point of order, contending that stripping the ESA provision would fundamentally alter the bill’s original intent and go against what Abbott directed elected officials to pass during the current special session. House Speaker Dade Phelan ended up overruling the point of order.
State Representative Brian Harrison declared the attempt to remove school choice from the bill as “anti-parent” and “anti-student.”
The House ended up voting by a margin of 84-63 to approve the amendment, stripping the school choice program from the school spending bill.
Brandon Walters of Texas Scorecard listed off the following Republicans who voted to kill school choice legislation:
Steve Allison
Ernest Bailes
Keith Bell
Dewayne Burns
Travis Clardy
Drew Darby
Jay Dean
Charlie Geren
Justin Holland
Kyle Kacal
Ken King
John Kuempel
Stan Lambert
Andrew Murr
Four Price
John Raney
Glenn Rogers
Hugh Shine
Reggie Smith
Ed Thompson
Gary VanDeaver
Despite the House’s scuttling of this bill, Governor Abbott announced he would call elected officials back for further special sessions into 2024 if this legislation does not get passed.
Republicans in the Texas House clearly want to maintain the education status quo.
To be sure, school choice has its flaws. Nevertheless, the educracy’s influence of education needs to be reduced. The education system is corrupt to the core and needs a drastic overhaul.
If we can’t reform education, we will only allow leftist activists to continue to indoctrinate millions of our youth for years on end, thereby providing leftists with future armies of woke automatons.
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