The Texas state legislature passed Senate Bill 2, allocating $1 billion in funding to create the Texas Education Freedom Accounts Program. This program includes vouchers that provide families who apply to the program with around $10,500 per child to put toward homeschooling or sending their children to private schools. Texas taxpayers would supply this money.
Families should advocate for more funding, along with better teachers, services and resources to improve their local public schools rather than using the money to fund their kids’ private schooling.
Arguing that Texas public schools are unsafe and not up to standards preferred by parents, conservative politicians and organizations have pushed for the funding, known as “vouchers,” to force public schools to start performing better under the added competition of private and homeschooling options for Texas children’s education.
These funds do not come from concerned politicians seeking to provide better education for Texas children. These policies are pushed by billionaires who support school choice, such as Jeff Yass, who is from Pennsylvania and donated millions to Abbott to unseat Texas House lawmakers who were against school vouchers. Billionaires, who have nothing to gain or lose from this legislation, support these policies. These vouchers are not in effect because of genuine care for Texas children’s education but because of moneyed interest.
Furthermore, Republican leaders state that the TEFA program awards around $10,000 per recipient, less than the amount of money schools receive per student, which is about $15,000. They insist that school vouchers do not harm public schools, as they clearly receive more money per student than vouchers give families.
However, the Texas Tribune found that after adjusting the payment per student for inflation, the actual amount was $12,140 dollars. This is a decline from 2021, when the original amount was $13,893 before inflation, and $12,413 after inflation adjustments.
So, while billionaires push for Texans’ taxpayer dollars to pay for private schools and homeschooling ventures, Texas public schools suffer from declining funds, which heavily rely on attendance.
Instead of going along with this billionaire-backed program, middle and lower-class families need to fight for local public schools. Instead of accepting that public schools are failing, parents must take it upon themselves to improve the public schools their kids are zoned to attend.
Failure to advocate for a community only weakens the community. Billionaires want to destroy public education. Parents should not let billionaires who suffer no consequences from their decisions impact Texas children’s lives.
