AUSTIN — A school choice program that would help Texas families pay for private schools and provide teacher pay raises and a state funding boost to public schools appeared to die late Wednesday — at least in the special session that is winding down.
House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, told House members they might come back Monday or Tuesday to act on two border security-related bills awaiting final Senate approval.
But Phelan was silent on the education measures, which have run out of time after passing in the Senate earlier in the year’s third special session.
The House again has rebuffed pressure by Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick for it to pass a bill to create education savings accounts.
Abbott has promised to call another special session, which could start as early as next week. He’s made it a priority to create education savings accounts, or ESAs, that families can use toward private school or other education-related expenses.
Abbott spokespersons did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Legislature’s deadlock and whether he’ll call a fourth special session — and if so, when.
The end to school choice deliberations in the current one came after a weekslong public squabble between Patrick and Phelan, the Legislature’s two top Republican leaders.
While Abbott said early Wednesday there was still time to pass a landmark education bill before the special session ends on Tuesday, Patrick insisted the House’s plan to put it all in one bill was misguided.
The ESA program and boosts of public school funding must be passed in separate bills, Patrick announced in a social media post Wednesday afternoon.
House leaders brought forward one large bill that would give families publicly funded ESAs to pay for private school or other education-related expenses, and boost public schools’ funding so teachers can have a pay raise, districts can cope with inflation and campuses can harden themselves against threats such as mass shootings.
Patrick, the Senate’s presiding officer, seemed to nix the all-in-one-bill approach.
“There is simply no time to start over with a new House bill,” Patrick posted on social media.
Patrick wanted the House to simply rewrite the pair of bills the Senate sent soon after the current special session started.
“The Senate will concur if we agree with the House’s changes or try to work out the differences in conference,” he said. “The Senate is ready to act, as we have been for weeks.”
Abbott had voiced hope that the House, which has been the graveyard for voucherlike proposals in recent sessions, could pass an omnibus education bill that included ESAs before the clock on the current special session expires.
Special sessions can’t last more than 30 days.
“There is enough time to get everything done that we want to get done that needs to get done to avoid a [fourth] special session,” Abbott told reporters at an economic development-related news conference at the governor’s mansion on Wednesday morning.
He had said a House bill would be unveiled later that day.
Brad Buckley, the House’s chairman of the Public Education Committee, previously released a wide-ranging, 184-page bill that included ESAs, teacher bonuses and more money for public schools.
The House, which has been negotiating with Abbott for weeks, has wanted both in one bill.
That way rural Republican House members, who have resisted vouchers along with Democrats, would have to swallow school choice to win badly needed money for their public schools back home. It would also be an assurance that Patrick and the Senate, which have championed school choice for many years, could not simply pass an ESA bill and let a separate school-funding bill die.
Though Patrick has said he favors increased funding for schools as well as a $500 million, two-year launch of ESAs, he has not signed off on some funding and academic accountability ideas that House GOP leaders have put forward.
The Senate’s SB 2 would give public schools in the current budget cycle $5.2 billion more for funding formula enhancements and for teachers bonuses of at least $3,000.
However, in the House, Buckley has said he wants to boost school funding by about $10 billion.
Relations between Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan, already strained, have been toxic lately.
After the Senate, which Patrick oversees, acquitted Attorney General Ken Paxton of House-approved corruption articles of impeachment last month, the lieutenant governor repeatedly criticized the lower chamber’s handling of the matter.
Patrick has called on Phelan to resign. Phelan, a Beaumont Republican, has refused. He countered with criticism of Patrick’s acceptance of $3 million this summer from a Paxton-supporting PAC whose former leader recently met with white supremacist Nick Fuentes.
Abbott has pledged to call lawmakers back to Austin for yet another special session if a school choice plan doesn’t make it to his desk. And if that fails, he has threatened to get involved in Republican primary elections.
Public school advocates worry an ESA program would drain neighborhood campuses of funding by redirecting state dollars to private schools that aren’t held to the same accountability standards.
“We’re not interested in compromising for vouchers to gain school funding,” Whitehouse ISD Superintendent Christopher Moran said at a September news conference alongside school leaders from across Texas. “This is a hill that we’re willing to die on.”
On Wednesday, Abbott sought to rebut opponents’ argument about private school students not being measured in high-stakes, standardized tests, as public school students are.
Abbott said the bill his office and Buckley have been negotiating would “ensure that students in the [ESA] program will have the option … of taking either a norm-referenced test or the STAAR test.”
Abbott explained, “We have that to ensure that if they go to a private school or other type of school that’s not a public school, there will be a level of accountability for these students.”
CORRECTION, 6:05 p.m., Nov. 2, 2023: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick favors a two-year launch of education savings accounts costing $500 billion. The Senate-passed bill that Patrick supports would spend $500 million.
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
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