Abbott's School Voucher Scheme De-funding Public Education

Gov. Abbott has started his campaign for re-election with two issues that rile up his base but don’t actually make Texas a better place. His expensive “Border Security” publicity stunt has been in the news several times. Abbott is using state funds to pay National Guard troops to look like they’re doing the federal government’s job and doing it so poorly that their duplicative inspections backed up truck traffic at the border for many hours costing Texas businesses and county governments more than $4 billion in just 10 days. His other issue is mis-named “school choice” and its goal is to de-fund public education.

Abbott says “We can fully fund public schools while also giving parents a choice about which school is right for their child … giving them the choice to send their children to any public school, charter school or private school with state funding following the student.” If it is so easy to fully fund public education in Texas why aren’t we doing it already? The state provides about 45% of the funds for every child in public schools. Texas K-12 public schools are plagued by high class sizes and under-paid teachers.

If the governor gets his way we can expect that the percentage of state funds per public school students to fall below 40% because the same total dollars will have to be spread over an additional 342,000 plus children currently attending private schools. Those private schools don’t currently receive state funding so unless the governor intends to increase the state public education budget by 6% that means cutting per student spending. Since most rural districts don’t have any private schools they’ll be required to educate the same number of children on 6% less state funding.

Abbott’s proposal really does several things that aren’t good for the vast majority of Texans. If you can’t afford to pay an extra $1350 or more per child in tuition you can’t take advantage of the program because private and religiously affiliated schools charge more than the state provides per student. There’s also a good chance you’ll have to provide transportation to and from school. In many parts of the state there are few if any non-sectarian private schools so if you’re not from one of the pre-dominant faiths in the area your children either won’t have the option to go to a private school or you’ll have to accept that they’re being indoctrinated in a faith other than yours.

While we’re on the topic of sectarian schools let’s review the First Amendment to the United States constitution which says in part “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. Now you might think that congress wouldn’t be responsible for funding Catholic, Baptist, or Lutheran schools so what’s the problem? The problem is the 14^th Amendment extends constitutional protections to state actions as well. In fact the 14^th Amendment is what prevents the states from doing all the things that the federal government is prohibited from doing in the rest of the constitution including the other amendments. It’s what ensures you have a right to a trial by a jury of your peers even in a state court and that local police can’t unreasonably seize your property or enter your home without a warrant. The Supreme Court long ago ruled against state funds supplementing teacher salaries at religious schools and that’s exactly what Abbott is advocating for.

What Abbott is really advocating for is essentially subsidizing wealthier people sending their kids to elitist schools while making it tougher on everyone else.

 Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 15, 2022