Texas families, advocates urge action on public school funding bill after school voucher bill signed into law
Families, educators, and advocates are pushing Texas lawmakers to pass public school funding bills now that the school voucher program has become a reality.
Gov. Greg Abbott officially signed the controversial $1 billion school choice bill into law on Saturday. The program uses taxpayer funds to help qualifying students pay for private school tuition.
"We saw a lot of talk at the beginning of this session about what the governor was calling the Texas Two-Step, which was we're going to pass the voucher bill, and then we're going to pass a large public school funding bill," said Jill Hill, a Coppell mom and member of Communities United for Public Education. "And so, the voucher bill has passed, and now this one is languishing."
Communities United for Public Education is a nonpartisan, nonfunded group in Coppell dedicated to raising awareness about school funding.
It's been five years since state lawmakers increased the per-student funding for public schools. Given the historic levels of inflation since then, districts are having to make do with less.
"We've just had to close a campus in our district," said Carla Behlen, another member of Communities United for Public Education. "We're running a deficit budget currently. So we know the situation is really dire and that during this session, it just was absolutely vital that we get some additional funding passed for public education."
With just a few weeks left in this session, they're calling on state lawmakers to take action.
"We're down to the wire here," Hill said. "If things don't get put on the calendar within the next couple of weeks, they're going to be essentially considered dead for this session. And we can't let that happen for our funding bill."
House Bill 2, which would invest $7.7 billion in public education, passed the house with overwhelming bipartisan support back in mid-April. The Senate has yet to put it on the calendar for the Senate education committee to review.
"And if it doesn't come to fruition, then that's going to be a big promise that's been broken to our Texas citizens," said Hill.
Communities United for Public Education is encouraging people to call their state senators and ask them to schedule HB2 for a discussion and vote before the session ends on June 2nd.
"I think that the numbers game is really important here," Hill said. "The more people that speak out, the harder it is to ignore.
HB 2 would increase the basic per-student funding allotment from $6,160 to $6,555. It would also provide raises for experienced teachers and improve special education funding.
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