During the fourth special session of the 88th Texas State Legislature in 2023, the House of Representatives assembled to vote on the fate of school vouchers in the chamber’s education funding bill. For the first time since 2005, a voucher-like proposal advanced through committee to be considered on the floor. Alongside the school voucher legislation were increases in public school funding and teacher pay, which were compromise measures added to satisfy legislators worried about the proposal’s threat to public education.
Despite months of negotiations and four overtime legislative sessions, the House struck down the voucher provision in an 84 to 63 vote. Governor Greg Abbott and other mainstream conservatives failed to break the coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans who remained vehemently opposed to any form of school voucher bill.
The Holdouts
As of the end of 2023, 32 states (and the District of Columbia) had some sort of voucher-like program through which students receive public funds to pay for private school tuition. Many of these programs are limited in scope, targeting low-income or special-needs children. However, a growing number of programs in states such as Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Utah and Arkansas provide vouchers to all students. The Texas voucher bill, had it passed, would have established one of these universal programs.
Vouchers were not always so popular. Historically, liberals and conservatives both supported local public education. However, the COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread disillusionment with the public school system — schools in the U.S. closed for longer than in most developed countries, resulting in record truancy rates and historically low student performance. Combined with recent “culture wars” over classroom topics such as race, history and LGBTQ issues, trust in public education is at an all-time low.
Opinions on universal school voucher programs are almost perfectly split along partisan lines. Conservatives have advocated for a federal voucher policy nationwide – President Trump made school choice a priority for his administration — while Democrats and left-leaning teacher’s unions have generally opposed voucher legislation. Arizona’s state legislature recently expanded their voucher program despite complete opposition by Democrats in the chamber.
But if voucher legislation is strongly favored among the Republican party, why have voucher expansion bills failed in states with Republican-dominated state houses such as Idaho, Virginia, Kentucky, South Dakota, Georgia and Texas?
It turns out that Democrats have found an unlikely ally in opposition against school vouchers — rural Republicans.
Rural Republican Opposition
Why do rural Republicans disagree with their urban and suburban counterparts? Twenty-one Texan representatives from mostly rural districts gave a variety of reasons for their votes against the school voucher bill. These arguments can be categorized into one of five categories:
Constitutionality
The Texas constitution charges the legislature with the “support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.” Rural Republicans contend that school vouchers violate this provision by diverting funding from public schools to private schools. However, these arguments are unlikely to change Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s assertion that school voucher policies are legal.
“As a state representative, I take seriously my oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, which requires Texas to establish, support and maintain a system of free public schools.” – Rep. Brooks Landgraf (R-81)
Accountability
Arizona has already encountered fraud and misuse of funds within its expanded universal school voucher program. Texas’s school voucher bill would have taken steps to address these issues, requiring the state comptroller to approve participating vendors and private schools. However, rural Republicans also worried that the measure did not include measures to assess participating students’ progress, which is usually done through testing requirements in public schools. Some representatives are even worried about curriculum decisions made by private schools — a conservative twist on a common liberal argument against school vouchers.
“The last thing we need to do is to dismantle a public education system by taking funding away without any real clear accountability in that process.” – Rep. Hugh Shine (R-55)
“Now, I get it in principle, but what about the parents that want their kid to learn Sharia law?” – Rep. Ken King (R-88)
Funding
Although advocates for the Texas bill stated that the funds for the program would come from the state’s general revenue fund and therefore wouldn’t take valuable resources away from public schools, opponents weren’t convinced. Texas’s investment in public education has stagnated over the past decade after a $5.4 billion cut in 2011 due to projected budget shortfalls. Opponents feared that future deficits could again result in cuts for public education if money was allocated for voucher programs. Rural Republicans argued that every dollar spent on vouchers could instead go towards improving public education.
“Every dollar that we spent on a voucher is going to be a dollar that is taken away from being able to invest in public education.” – Rep. Stan Lambert (R-71)
Practicality
Private schools are less likely to serve the rural areas where most opposing Republicans reside. Accordingly, rural districts would have received less funding from this bill than suburban and urban districts. Because funding for public school districts is determined on a per-student basis, rural districts could have lost money as parents directed their children to private institutions. According to Every Texan, a left-leaning think tank, House Representative Gary VanDeaver’s 1st district would have lost $3.5 million from lower student attendance. It is important to note, though, that the increased public school funding included in the final iteration of the school voucher bill would have resulted in a far larger gain for his district — up to $49 million, according to the House committee analysis.
“I’m just philosophically not in favor of vouchers primarily because of the district I represent” – Rep. Gary VanDeaver (R-1)
Reversibility
Republican opponents pointed out the permanence of legislation creating school voucher systems. Universal programs implemented in other states such as Arizona are now already serving tens of thousands of students. Stepping back from such large-scale programs only becomes more politically difficult as vouchers become a regular part of constituents’ lives. Even when rural republicans in Texas were offered a watered-down version of the universal voucher bill, compromise was difficult when representatives were thinking of policy implications decades down the line — something made possible by the lack of political pressure on incumbents in these rural districts. Governor Abbott attempted to create pressure by endorsing primary challengers for Republican opponents of the bill.
“Once you have a voucher, regardless of how small it is, you have vouchers. You can’t be just a little bit pregnant. Either you are or not. That’s as simple as it gets.” – Rep. Ernest Bailes (R-18)
Comparison to Democratic Opposition
These arguments from rural Republican communities tend to mirror rhetoric from more liberal education advocates. Many Democrats also oppose school vouchers, fearing that the programs reduce funding for public schools and do not hold participating schools accountable for spending and curriculum decisions. Both groups believe that school voucher programs will harm public schools.
Where Democrats and rural Republicans differ is the reason behind their desire to protect public schools. Democrats are linked to public education through teachers’ unions and oppose publicly funding private schools because of their religious influences and history of racial discrimination. Rural Republicans do not necessarily share these qualms. Instead, these representatives and their districts have a deep connection to their local public schools. With classes that teach technical skills such as welding and major events such as Friday Night Football, local public schools are more than just a source of education — they form the backbone of many rural communities.
What Now?
For now, the coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans seem to have won. Governor Greg Abbott forwent another attempt in a fifth special session in the face of heavy opposition, turning his attention toward the Republican primaries in an effort to replace the holdouts. However, other issues are garnering national media attention, overshadowing Abbott’s push for school choice. While school choice is broadly popular among Texan voters, it ranks lower in importance than topics such as immigration and border security. Voucher advocates in Texas remain undeterred by the setbacks, though, and are gearing up for a long fight against stalwart opponents in the 2024 primaries, the 2025 legislative session and beyond.
