Voucher day in House Public Education Committee

Tuesday was “voucher day” in the House Public Education Committee. While the education community had a big win last week on the Herrero amendment to the budget, the battle is certainly not over and House leadership appears to be intent on at least giving voucher legislation a fair shot. It is noteworthy that committee chair Brad Buckley was one of the members who publicly opposed the Herrero amendment during the budget debate.

Bills on the committee agenda included a House version of SB 8, the education savings account program that recently passed the Senate as well as bills providing “insurance premium tax credits” under which entities could pay for private school tuition scholarships in exchange for credits against their state taxes.

The hearing lasted from 8 a.m. until nearly 3 a.m. Wednesday (with a 3-hour break to attend the House floor session).

The committee advanced HB 100, a bill by Rep. Ken King increasing school funding by $140 per student over a two-year period, and revising the teacher salary structure. TCTA and other groups hope to continue working with Rep. King to improve the salary provisions of the bill, which are essentially the same as those that were described in our writeup up of HB 11.