Forest Country News

Texas GOP lawmakers have introduced a series of bills that would provide public funding for private and religious schools for Texas students.

According to the Texas Senate, an education savings account (ESA) program would be established, with up to $8,000 available per student and controlled by the Comptroller of Public Accounts in Texas. The bill clarifies that school districts with less than 20,000 students are "held harmless" so as to not lose enrollment. The bill also ensures no teaching on gender identity and requires parents be notified with any changes to their child's "mental, emotional or physical health."

Texas Sen. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe), the author of the bill, spoke with ABC News 8. "For education savings Accounts, as it’s indicated in our policy, the comptroller’s office would take applications for the use of these $8,000 education savings accounts, and that would go directly to an approved private school that the family preferred."

Creighton said the state currently provides approximately $10,000 per student, including taxpayer funds.

“For the $8,000, we just looked at a number that, from a scarcity-of-dollars standpoint, that we could comfortably justify in this budget to not create any kind of a fiscal cliff,” Creighton told ABC News 8. “We look at surpluses cautiously because we can’t obligate future legislatures or budgets to money that won’t be there in the future.”

However, critics of school choice legislation, and specifically of Senate Bill 8, say private schools will not be held to the same accountability of success that public schools are. SB 8 is meant as a solution for rural Republican districts who are usually hesitant about the idea school choice.

“Educating the next generation of Texans is the most fundamental responsibility we have, and I authored Senate Bill 8 to place parents, not government, squarely in the center of the decisions for their children. Giving parents the power to determine the best school for their child will encourage competition and innovation, ensuring that each Texas student has the opportunity to succeed,” Creighton said, according to the Texas Senate website.

The bill has a provision that would provide funding to any school with less than 20,000 students, which had students leaving the public school system, to balance it out. SB 9 is linked to SB 8 and calls for teacher raises.

Creighton is hopeful to pass the legislation: “Anyone who creates a narrative that you can’t lift up public schools and teachers and also provide educational empowerment for families is just creating a narrative that’s false and divisive,” he told ABC News 8.

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