Texas House lawmakers filed a sweep of education-related legislation Thursday including a school voucher proposal and a funding bill that would invest $8 billion in public education.
The bills are the House’s answer to the Texas Senate’s swift action early this session to advance education legislation, including a $1 billion annual school voucher program and $2.3 billion annually for teacher pay raises.
House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, called his chamber’s school finance bill, House Bill 2, and school voucher bill, House Bill 3, “the Texas two-step.”
Speaking to a conference room of conservative leaders at the Texas Public Policy Foundation Summit on Thursday morning, Burrows said a school voucher program is “the defining issue of this session.”
“I believe we can fully fund public education while recognizing that one size does not fit all,” said the Lubbock Republican.
Speaking at a separate TPPF panel a few hours after Burrows, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said he’s confident the House will pass a version of “school choice” during the 2025 session, a completely different outcome than in the 2023 session when the House defeated school voucher proposals.
“Thank God, Dustin Burrows says we will,” said the three-term Republican who presides over the state Senate. “There’s no way school choice is ever going to undermine public education.”
School vouchers, also referred to as school choice by supporters, is a program that would use public money to pay for a child’s private school tuition. Since the 2023 legislative session, Gov. Greg Abbott has thrown his political capital behind the issue — touring the state to promote the program and even campaigning in 2024 against other Republicans who were being challenged by pro-voucher candidates in the GOP primary.
What do the Texas House education bills propose?
Authored by Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, the House school voucher bill differs from the proposal the Senate passed earlier this month as the lower chamber’s program would create a stricter tier of eligibility and it would tie the amount of public money children receive for private schooling to the dollar amount students in public schools are provided.
Buckley, who chairs the House Committee on Public Education, also authored the school finance bill, which would increase the base level of per student funding by $220 — from $6,160 to $6,380. On top of this base-level funding, the state would add other money for specific needs such as special education, bilingual education, transportation or rural district revenue. The nearly 150-page bill would also increase a swath of specific education-related appropriations, such as for fine arts, rural schools and prekindergarten.
HB 2 also proposes $1.8 billion for special education, funding for high school career advisers and money for teaching candidates who are working their practice hours at a district.
Under HB 3, children participating in the voucher program would receive 85% of how much public school children receive on average each year. That figure is about $10,500 this year, according to an American-Statesman analysis. Students in special education, whose needs are typically more costly, would receive the funding they’d be entitled to if they had attended a public school, up to $30,000.
Like the Senate proposal, HB 3 would provide children up to $2,000 for homeschooling.
The House proposal, however, would set out a tiered system for school voucher eligibility.
The program prioritizes children with special education needs in families at or below 500% of the federal povery line — about $160,000 for a family of four. Then, the program would prioritize children from all families at 200% of the federal poverty line — about $64,000 for a family of four. Children in other income brackets are placed in other tiers of priority.
The House bill offers parents some degree of flexibility and allows them to spend money on private school, a higher education provider, an online course or an industry-based credential.
“We want kids in Texas to do better,” Buckley said. “That’s what it’s about.”
It was a strategic move to tie how much private school children receive through HB 3, which calls the voucher program an education savings account, or ESA, to public school funding, Buckley said.
“It was important that there be a linkage there,” Buckley said. “We never wanted to have a situation where we were funding more for an ESA than the public school amounts. We’re taking a whole-state approach to it.”
Senate proposals
The Senate hurriedly passed its school voucher proposal Feb. 5, about three weeks after the start of the legislative session, which would provide $10,000 for private schooling and $11,500 for children with special education needs. The bill prioritizes special education and low-income students, but Democratic senators criticized the proposal for defining low-income as 500% of the poverty line (about $160,000 for a family of four).
Democratic lawmakers push back
The Senate has also prioritized teacher retention and performance-based pay increases. On Thursday, the Senate Committee on Education advanced Senate Bill 26, by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, which would give teachers up to a $10,000 pay boost and would open up a new category of the Teacher Incentive Allotment program, which pays teachers bonuses for factors such as student growth and performance on state tests.
Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, said Thursday that she was “disappointed” by the House’s public school finance bill and its proposed increase to per-student funding.
The base-level per-student funding was last boosted in 2019 to $6,160. School district superintendents from across the state have complained that the funding hasn’t kept up with inflation, with some districts seeing costs rise by as much as 22% in the past few years.
“Our neighborhood schools are desperate for the funding they need to keep their best teachers in the classroom,” Hinojosa said.
Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat from Austin who was previously a schoolteacher, pushed back on Republicans’ assurances that the House had enough votes to pass a school voucher package.
“Voucher proponents have a habit of declaring victory prematurely,” Talarico said.
Both Hinojosa and Talarico are on the House Education Committee.
Buckley on Thursday also filed HB 4, which would overhaul statewide assessments. Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, filed HB 6, which was meant to give teachers more tools to handling challenging disciplinary issues, and Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, filed HB 123, meant to support early numeracy and literacy skills.
Statesman reporter John C. Moritz contributed to this report.
This story was updated to add a video.