This is a multipart series on the different ways the 2024 Presidential Election is likely to affect Texas.
Aside from immigration, school vouchers are the hottest of political potatoes in Texas. Governor Greg Abbott went to war against his own party members after rural Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives scuttled his plans for a universal school voucher system, as well as withholding all school funding reform until he gets his way. It’s certain to be priority one when the legislature meets again in January.
First, a primer on the issue, as it is often accompanied by various buzz phrases to make it more palatable to the public. School vouchers allow parents to use taxpayer money to pay for tuition at private schools. Abbott calls this an education savings account, but it is essentially a welfare program. Sometimes the issue is called “school choice,” but this is also a misnomer as parents in Texas already have the right to send their child to any school they choose.
Rural Republicans worry that a school voucher program will drain education resources from their public schools, which employ a lot of people and serve as community hubs. Democrats see it as a way to funnel state dollars to wealthy Christian academies which have increasingly become power players in politics.
This is not a Texas issue. The push for vouchers has been a nationwide one, funded by conservative Christian billionaires like Jeff Yass and spearheaded by Betsy DeVos, former Secretary of Education for the Trump Administration. States like Arizona, Florida, and Oklahoma have already passed versions of Abbott’s plan.
Considering DeVos’s role in promoting vouchers, it’s unsurprising that former president Donald Trump is very supportive of the idea. Trump has come out in favor of parents being able to use $10,000 in taxpayer funds to pay for private school.
Vice President Kamala Harris has opposed this. The Democratic platform contains planks specifically against supporting vouchers, calling them a drain on public schools. Her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, has long been an opponent of vouchers.
On one hand, the president has little input on the matter. School funding is the ultimate local government issue, with states and districts handling the majority of initiatives. The federal government is more likely to set things like discrimination policies and minimum education standards.
On the other hand, DeVos herself is proof of how much influence the federal government can have on the matter. DeVos’s tenure as Secretary of Education added considerable clout to the school voucher movement which has paid off exponentially in the last four years. If she returns to the role, or Trump appoints someone similar, it will certainly push the issue.
One area that Harris might make strides in is regulating private schools to the same standards as public schools. As it stands, private schools in Texas are free from a lot of scrutiny in admissions and test scores. This has led to worries about segregation, which is fitting as the private school boom of the 20th Century was largely driven by white parents who didn’t want to send their children to integrated campuses.
Another possible area of regulation is pricing. Abbott’s proposal has few controls to keep private schools from raising their prices to grab more money from parents now that the state is footing a significant portion of the bill. If the U.S. Congress takes up the issue, it could mitigate much of the damage voucher programs are already causing.
Either way, the fight is likely to remain in the states unless it comes to a judicial challenge. Then, it is a good chance that it would make it to the U.S. Supreme Court. In which case, who appoints the next couple of justices might make all the difference.