AUSTIN — House Republican leaders on Friday unveiled their starting-point proposal for how the Legislature and Gov. Greg Abbott might resolve a yearlong impasse over school choice, teacher compensation and public schools funding.
The bill would open the door to an education savings account program slightly wider than proposed in a version Salado GOP Rep. Brad Buckley introduced 15 days earlier.
But the launch of ESAs, which would use public funds to help families afford private-school tuition, would still be a limited one — reaching no more than about 47,600 of Texas’ more than 6 million children of school age.
Voucher opponents, however, have warned that any initial ESA program would soon grow to cover many more children — mostly those already in private schools.
Buckley, the House’s chairman of the Public Education Committee, said in a cover letter to colleagues Abbott is “likely” to “call us back into session next week.”
“My reason for disseminating this draft is to give each of you a jumpstart on examining this bill ahead of the next special session,” Buckley wrote.
Abbott’s office would not confirm whether the three-term Republican governor will call a special session next week. The current one, the year’s third, cannot go past Tuesday. Special sessions can last no longer than 30 days.
Under Buckley’s new bill, ESAs would provide up to $10,500 a year per student for private school or other education expenses. Home-schooled students could receive $1,000.
As in Buckley’s previous version, full-time teachers, school nurses, counselors and librarians would receive $4,000 bonuses.
Over the current budget cycle, which ends in August 2025, the state would increase the basic allotment, or the main building block of state aid to public schools, to $6,700 per pupil. That’s up from $6,500 in the bill Buckley introduced on Oct. 19. Currently, the basic allotment is $6,160. That’s the same as it’s been since 2019, creating an inflation squeeze on school districts.
The latest Buckley bill sets out a priority list of which students would qualify for ESAs, with disabled children and those from poor families ranked highest.
“The bill looks like it’s an attempt to get closer to the Senate version,” which also had a priority ranking for ESAs, said Dax Gonzalez, spokesperson for the Texas Association of School Boards.
American Federation for Children, a national school choice advocacy group based in Dallas, praised Buckley’s new bill as imperfect but an improvement over his last.
“We thank Rep. Buckley and others for their work to provide Texas students with education freedom,” Tommy Schultz, the group’s chief executive, said in a written statement. “Now, in a new special session, the debate will begin with a promising new proposal.”
The bill’s prospects are unclear. In the past, a coalition of Democrats and most rural Republicans have defeated voucherlike proposals in the House.
In September, Abbott told conservative clergy he planned back-to-back special sessions this fall on school choice. If House lawmakers both times blocked ESAs, Abbott said he would “send this to the voters themselves to vote in the primary.”
Many GOP House members who oppose voucherlike programs construed Abbott’s remark as meaning he would support their opponents in the March 5 GOP primary.
On Friday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has been jousting with House Speaker Dade Phelan for weeks, said in a social media post he suggested to Abbott “that if the Texas House fails to pass acceptable school choice legislation this fall,” the governor should call lawmakers back for a session beginning Feb. 5.
That way, incumbent GOP House members would be torn between their duties in Austin and campaigning back home.
Abbott spokespersons did not respond to questions about the governor’s planned agenda for or timing of the next special session. The current one began Oct. 9, with an initial agenda of school choice, border security and COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Last week, Abbott relented to House pressure and expanded the agenda, or “call.” It now includes additional funding for public schools and changes to academic accountability that Buckley and Speaker Dade Phelan have insisted must be considered at the same time as a voucherlike program.
Buckley’s letter to colleagues said Abbott’s “expanded call has given the House the tools it needs to take this bill up for debate.”
Buckley, who has yet to hold a meeting of his Select Committee on Educational Opportunity & Enrichment in the current session, said “we will plan to move forward with” consideration of his revised bill in the next one.
