Letter to the Editor

Governor Abbott has called a special 30-day session of the Texas Legislature in order to enact passage of a voucher bill that failed three times during the regular session. He has said he will call special sessions until the Texas House approves it, failing that, he will see that the hold-outs have an opponent in the March 2024 primary.

Vouchers, or ESA’s, will give $8,000 of taxpayer money to every child who wants to attend a private school, including wealthy students who already attend them.

Vouchers have not worked in other states who have approved them. In Arizona, 85% of voucher money went to students already attending private schools. Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar said recently that there’s no way to track the money, therefore there will be no accountability.

Private schools don’t offer transportation, or special services such as speech and dyslexia programs. Many of them cost over $20,000 annually and routinely turn away applicants. Public schools take all children who arrive at their door. Pretending vouchers will allow underprivileged students to attend is simply not true in the vast majority of cases.

Governor Abbott’s wealthy donors, fracking billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks and others, want to completely remake education in Texas. They are behind many of the efforts to undermine the public’s faith in their teachers, librarians, and administrators.

Comanche County’s representative David Spiller and senator Brian Birdwell need to hear from all of us that we support our public schools and the 5.5 million students who attend them, as laid out in Article 7 Section 1 of the Texas Constitution, “…it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”