House Public Education Committee advances voucher bill, school finance

AI-Generated Summary:
The Texas House Public Education Committee has voted to advance two key pieces of legislation:

House Bill 2 (HB 2) – A school finance bill that:

Increases the Basic Allotment from $6,160 to $6,555
Adds a quasi-inflationary adjustment tied to property value changes
Allocates 40% of the Basic Allotment increase for teacher pay raises
Eliminates a previous "hold harmless" provision, which concerned some committee members
Passed with a 13-2 vote

Senate Bill 2 (SB 2) – A voucher bill that:

Sets a $1 billion cap for the first year, but expands funding afterward
Will only allow U.S. citizens or lawful residents to access funds
Places a 20% cap on funds for students with disabilities (up to $30,000 per student)
Passed along party lines (9-6)

Notable context:

The meeting sparked controversy because it was not broadcast to the public despite being held in a room with audiovisual capabilities. Democratic members raised concerns about transparency
Critics argued the voucher program would ultimately harm public schools and primarily benefit wealthy families.

Additional legislation passed by the committee included bills addressing school discipline, financial literacy education, school safety funding, cell phone use in schools, and virtual education.

The committee will meet again April 8.

The House Public Education Committee voted Thursday to advance two of Chairman Brad Buckley’s (R–Salado) pieces of priority legislation: House Bill (HB) 2, the school finance bill, and the House version of Senate Bill (SB) 2, the voucher bill by Senate Education K-16 Chair Brandon Creighton (R–Conroe). Each bill will now advance to the Calendars Committee. That committee will decide when, or if, each bill will be scheduled for debate on the floor of the Texas House.

The committee vote, originally scheduled for Tuesday, was postponed Monday night in order to allow committee members time to read the committee substitute versions of the bills, as well as to attempt to sort out competing version of the financial runs that show how the bills would be expected to impact each school district.

As the committee began its work Thursday, the decision to hold a “formal” meeting, and thus not broadcast the meeting to the public, caught ire from committee Democrats. Normal committee meetings are broadcast on the House website to the public and involve public testimony. Formal meetings are not usually broadcast to the public. However, formal meetings are also usually are quick, simple affairs, with members taking votes on business pending before the committee with little to no additional debate or discussion of the bills ahead of the vote. This meeting, which was held in a room with full audiovisual capability, was decidedly not that. It featured lengthy back and forth discussion on both the underlying bill language and on the substantial changes to the bills, which were being offered up publicly for the first time during the meeting. Given the public interest in the topics before the committee, Rep. James Talarico (D–Round Rock) questioned the decision by the chairman.

“Is there anything in the House rules that says you can’t turn on the cameras in the back?” Talarico asked. He said constituents should be allowed to see the discussion. Buckley responded that committee members had heard many hours of public testimony on both bills, that he was holding the meeting in the normal hearing room to allow as much room as possible for people who wanted to attend, and that reporters had been invited to broadcast the meeting. Dr. Alma Allen (D–Houston) shared Talarico’s concern, asking the chairman “What are we hiding?”

HB 2, the House school finance proposal

The committee took up HB 2, the House’s school finance proposal, first. Changes to the committee sub from the originally drafted version of the bill include:

Raising the Basic Allotment (BA) from $6,160 to $6,555, an increase of $395 (up from $220 in the original filed version).
A quasi-inflationary adjustment added to the BA every biennium, tied to property value changes.
Teacher pay increases set at 40% of the BA increase (the committee sub prioritizes raises for five-plus and 10-plus years of experience).

Much of the discussion on HB 2 centered on the committee sub’s elimination of a “hold harmless” provision, which had been added in a previous session to protect districts from financial hits due to property tax relief. Buckley said the provision was being phased out in an attempt to provide equity between districts. Rep. John Bryant (D–Dallas) called the committee substitute a “catastrophe” and asked why the committee was voting out such a flawed bill instead of continuing to work on it. Buckley responded there would be time between now and when the bill reaches the House floor to continue to work on the bill and committed to doing so with committee members.

Talarico echoed Bryant’s concerns: “I want to be careful that we don’t overpromise to our constituents.” Talarico expressed concerns that while the bill had some good aspects, it fails to dig many districts out of the funding holes they currently find themselves in and doesn’t catch districts up to 2019 funding levels. Talarico asked how much it would cost to fix the hold harmless provision Bryant had asked about. Buckley said estimates were $600 million to over $1 billion.

“What is the fiscal note for the [voucher] bill we’re about to hear next?” Talarico asked.

“A billion dollars,” Buckley responded.

HB 2 was passed through the committee by a vote of 13-2, with Bryant and Allen voting against the measure.

SB 2, the Senate’s voucher proposal

Next the committee took up SB 2, which is the Senate’s voucher proposal. Instead of proposing changes to his own voucher bill, HB 2, Buckley introduced a committee substitute to SB 2 in an attempt to speed up the passage of his voucher proposal.

Changes to the bill include a $1 billion hard cap on the first year of the program, which limits the amount of funds that can be spent on the voucher this biennium. However, after the first year of the program, the language in the substitute would automatically fund anyone on the waiting list in the subsequent year. Presumably, this could include a substantial number of current private school students who did not fit into the bill’s first-year parameters at a cost of potentially billions of additional dollars. The substitute also includes a provision that will only allow U.S. citizens or lawful residents to access the funds, as well as a 20% cap on the funds for students with disabilities—who would receive up to $30,000 under the proposal.

Talarico said he was glad the two bills were being discussed side by side. “We just talked about how our schools are in dire straits, and now we’re considering a bill sending a billion dollars to kids in private schools,” Talarico said. “Until our schools are fully funded, I don’t think we should even be entertaining this bill.”

Talarico pointed out that while the bill’s supporters claim its purpose is to help struggling Texas families, the cap on the bill’s funds expires after a year, leaving it open to big increases in future spending. Buckley confirmed that was accurate. Talarico asked why funds weren’t limited to low-income families and pointed out that Elon Musk, a Texas resident who supports the bill, would be eligible for $1.2 million in state funds for his 14 children under this bill. “If our goal is to help families limited by income, we could do that in this bill,” Talarico said. He pointed out that in other states, most voucher users are already in private schools and that the bill would amount to a transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top. If the goal was to help struggling families, Talarico said: “Your bill does not match the rhetoric.”

“I resent the effort to use parents or use choice to pass a bill that will benefit wealthy families,” Talarico said. He called the bill “a deeply immoral decision.” Buckley said he resented a person’s address determining their educational situation. This common refrain about “ZIP codes” is an outdated argument that dates back to a time before open enrollment and transfer policies were nearly ubiquitous, as they are now.

“I don’t know why we’ve wasted so much time on this issue,” Rep. Gina Hinojosa (D – Austin) said. The focus, Hinojosa said, should be on investing in the system of public schools that supports 5.5 million Texas kids. “It just makes no sense,” Hinojosa said, to take $1 billion in funding away from schools that are struggling.

Allen did not mince words, telling the committee: “This bill will eventually destroy public schools.” She talked about her childhood, growing up during segregation, and the hardships she and her classmates faced. “We’re on our way back there, to not educating kids.”

Rep. James Frank (R–Wichita Falls) called the claims that the bill will destroy public schools “fearmongering.”

Rep. Trent Ashby (R–Lufkin) said there are some “common-sense” measures that could be taken to improve the bill. He said he would support adding a sunset review to the bill that would study the impact of the voucher in four to six years.

The committee ultimately approved SB 2 along party lines, 9-6.

Additional legislation voted out to full House

Following the voucher vote, the committee also approved several other pending bills:

ATPE-supported HB 6 by Rep. Jeff Leach (R–Plano) would expand a school’s right to use out-of-school suspensions to discipline students, expand the amount of time allowed for in-school suspensions, and create a virtual disciplinary alternative education program (DAEP) for students expelled from school. The original version of this bill included language concerning “psychological and psychiatric testing” that was broad and vague and could potentially require parental consent each time a teacher does simple things to check on a child’s welfare, such as a daily mood check-in. ATPE asked for this to be removed in written and oral testimony, and the committee substitute no longer contains this language. The bill also contained language concerning educator misconduct that failed to define “inappropriate communication” or “appropriate boundaries,” and ATPE expressed concerns about potential unintended consequences resulting from this language being so vague. This language has also been removed from the bill.
ATPE-supported HB 27 by Rep. Ken King (R–Canadian), which would make financial literacy a graduation requirement instead of an elected course, replacing economics in the required curriculum.
HB 100 by Rep. Terri Leo-Wilson (R–Galveston), which seeks to prohibit districts from using materials that are on the State Board of Education (SBOE)’s rejected list.
ATPE-supported HB 117 by Rep. Alan Schoolcraft (R–Seguin), which would create a Governor’s Task Force on the Governance of Early Childhood and Care. ATPE asked in both written and public testimony for an educator to be added to the task force, and the committee substitute of the bill adds two.
HB 121 by Rep. Ken King (R–Canadian), which would allow TEA to deputize members of law enforcement within the agency in order to improve communication between the agency and districts regarding school safety.
ATPE-supported HB 124 by Rep. Greg Bonnen (R–Friendswood), which would increase the school safety allotment from $10 to $14 per student and $15,000 to $27,000 per campus. While ATPE supported this bill, we submitted written testimony asking the House to adopt the language of SB 260 by Sen. Joan Huffman (R–Houston), which provides $20 per student and $30,000 per campus for school safety.
ATPE-supported HB 1458 by Rep. Will Metcalf (R–Conroe), which would allow retired peace officers and reserve deputy sheriffs to become campus guardians under the provisions set forth in HB 3 last session.
HB 1481 by Rep. Caroline Fairly (R–Amarillo), which would ban student cell phone use during the instructional day. While ATPE did not support this bill when it first came to committee, the newest committee sub language incorporates changes requested by ATPE, including allowing more local control in deciding school policies, and removing language that would have banned cell phones at extracurricular events and field trips. Due to these changes, ATPE now supports the bill.
ATPE-opposed HB 2196 by Rep. Keith Bell (R–Forney), which would replace the Texas Virtual School Network and expand full-time virtual education. ATPE submitted written testimony requesting three changes be made to HB 2196: (1) tying virtual students to a physical campus for purposes of tutoring, testing, and receiving services such as special education; (2) prohibiting full-time asynchronous virtual programs; and (3) strengthening language in the bill that gives the Texas Education Commissioner unilateral authority to determine which third-party vendors may provide full-time virtual services by adding clear, minimum standards to the statute. Although ATPE opposes HB 2196 in its current form, we hope to be able to support legislation this session that would improve the current statutory framework for virtual education.
HCR 64 by Rep. Pat Curry (R–Waco), which would establish the first full week of April as Gifted and Talented Students Week.