House Public Education Committee debates school vouchers

The House Public Education Committee met March 11 to discuss HB 3, a statewide school voucher program. Much like SB 2 in the Senate, the program would establish a program of education savings accounts (ESAs) to help pay for educational expenses for students, including private school tuition, tutoring services and homeschooling materials, among other things. 

The first 10 hours of the hearing consisted of committee members asking questions of the author, Committee Chairman Brad Buckley (R-Salado). Democrats' questions were designed to expose weaknesses in the bill, and Republicans' questions served mostly to promote aspects of the bill they see as beneficial. 

For high-profile bills like HB 3, the chair and vice chair each invite a few people to testify on the bill. In this case, Buckley invited a handful of people to voice their support for the bill, and Vice Chair Diego Bernal (D-San Antonio) invited a few to speak against it. Buckley's invitees were private school advocates and pro-school choice advocates, while Bernal's were community members from Edgewood ISD in San Antonio, a disability rights expert, and a school voucher researcher.  

Many of the committee members' questions were focused on the contrast between research findings from pro-school choice advocate Robert Enlow and school voucher researcher Josh Cowan. Enlow touted research showing significant benefits for states that implemented school voucher programs, but Cowan rebutted Enlow's claims with contradicting research of his own. When Cowan began researching the issue in the early 2000s, he said he was somewhat agnostic on the issue, but as he continued to monitor voucher results in the past two and a half decades, he has since become strongly opposed to school voucher programs. 

Steven Aleman, an advocate from Disability Rights Texas, spoke about the wide-ranging effects a school voucher program could have on special education. He laid out the many ways in which public and private schools interact in current law to serve special education students, and committee members appeared to be genuinely interested in learning more about the finer points of special education law. 

The committee members spent most of their energy questioning those invited to testify, debating the impact the bill would have on public school funding and whether it would work as intended. The hearing, which began at 8 a.m. March 11, ended at 6:30 a.m. March 12. In total, more than 700 members of the public registered their opinion on the bill, 481 of whom were against it.

HB 3 is certain to be one of the most debated bills of the legislative session. TCTA will continue to monitor the bill when it is heard again and provide you with updates.