Short on time? ATPE has two advocacy campaigns you can use to contact your lawmakers on public education funding and vouchers: 

The only bill heard during the Senate Education Committee’s first hearing of the 2025 regular session was not a public education bill.  

Texas public schools have not received an inflationary adjustment to their discretionary funding since 2019—and we all know how inflation has affected budgets of all types since 2019. Consequently, districts across the state are struggling with deficit budgets, forcing them to close campuses, cut back on programming, or both. Districts are struggling to recruit and retain teachers—the most important in-school factor in a child’s education—both because of mandate-heavy, autonomy-limiting state laws and because they are struggling to adequately pay teachers compared with similarly educated peers in other professions. Complying with state safety regulations costs districts roughly $800 million more than state-provided funding for safety, and districts spend $2 billion more on required special education services than the provided special education funding. 

So, which of these pressing issues that impact 5.5 million young Texans did the Senate Committee on Education K-16 discuss? None of them! When choosing what to prioritize for the committee’s first hearing, Chairman Brandon Creighton (R–Conroe) picked his private school voucher bill, Senate Bill (SB) 2. (The committee advanced the bill on a 9-2 party-line vote immediately after the conclusion of public testimony, most of which was in opposition to the bill.) 

We know universal voucher programs, like the one proposed in SB 2, are primarily used not by students moving from public to private schools but by students already enrolled in private schools. We know new private schools tend to pop up in states with new voucher programs; these schools are designed to serve low-income students, with tuition costs close to the voucher amount, and they tend to have poor (often very poor) academic performance—and, on average, they close down four years after opening, sometimes mid-year. (For more about this, we recommend The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers by Josh Cowen.) We know that while SB 2’s annual $1 billion price tag (as filed) is not insignificant, it pales in comparison to the $7 billion to $8 billion per year it would cost to fund just the current population of Texas students not educated in public schools. We know that vouchers send public tax dollars to schools that provide little to no accountability and transparency to taxpayers. 

Whether you generally oppose or support voucher policy, perhaps the most immediately frustrating feature aspect of Tuesday’s Senate Education hearing is the clear prioritization of vouchers over all other education policy. While amazing things are happening in Texas public schools every day, we know the provision of education in our public schools is not perfect. Parents and educators alike are looking for improved funding and policy frameworks. In polling, even a majority of those Texans who do not oppose vouchers rank the issue at the bottom of potential policy priorities on which the Legislature could focus. There is no doubt an annual cost of up to $8 billion would crowd out other state policy priorities, including—but certainly not limited to—improving the public education system.  

For decades, ATPE members have opposed private school vouchers, as evidenced by the ATPE Legislative Program adopted by the educator-members serving in the ATPE House of Delegates each year. The current program’s position on vouchers states: “ATPE opposes any voucher program, including a tuition tax credit, education savings account, or any other such program that would direct public funds to private, home, or for-profit virtual schools.” Based on this position, ATPE has submitted this testimony opposing SB 2.  

So much has been said about vouchers in the media and in marketing campaigns. Sorting fact from fantasy has become a real challenge. The dedicated professionals at The Texas Tribune have put together this primer that attempts to succinctly lay out the many players and issues surrounding the push for and against vouchers in Texas. We recommend you check it out. 

Teach the Vote readers who would like to voice their opinions on either the SB 2 voucher proposal or the prioritization of vouchers above other policy issues before the Texas Legislature can do so by visiting ATPE’s Advocacy Central, which allows constituents to quickly and easily communicate with their elected officials. We currently have two advocacy campaigns related to this issue and tied to two of our association’s legislative priorities: Increase Public Education Funding and Educator Compensation and Protect the State’s Educational Safety Net. 

In our current environment, when out-of-state millions are being spent to influence the education we provide to our Texas children, it will require Texas public educators, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and neighbors standing together to hold our lawmakers to their constitutional duty “to make suitable provisions for the support and maintenance of a system of Public Free Schools.” The emphasis on “suitable” is ours … but could anyone honestly define the status quo as suitable?