Speaker 1: Today's episode of the trip Cast is sponsored by the
Coalition of Education Funding and Raise your Hand Texas. Hello
and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip Cast for February eighteenth,
twenty twenty five. I am Matthew Watkins, editor in chief
of the Texas Tribune, and as usual, we are joined
by politics reporter James Bergon.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, Matthew, Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to be back. And also you know her
as the stephen A. Smith of the Texas Tribune. Eleanor Cleveanov.
Speaker 3: Hello, My sports knowledge is bested only by my politics knowledge.
Speaker 1: I go away for two weeks and it's just nothing
but hot sports takes the entire time.
Speaker 2: I can't believe it.
Speaker 3: This is as shocking to me as it is to
everyone else.
Speaker 1: And our special guest this week is our K through
twelve education reporter Jadan Edison. Hey, Jaden, thanks for having me.
Glad to be here, Glad to have you here. So
let's talk about what happened this week. Jaden is here.
We're going to talk about the hot ticket item of
the legislative session, school choice school vouchers, whatever you want
to call it. But first let's just look you know.
I think catching up on something we've been looking forward
to for a few weeks was the announcement of House
committee assignments in the State House. Dustin Burrow's doing this
for the first time. People watching that to get a
little bit of a sense of what kind of leader
he would be. James, you covered that story. What did
you see?
Speaker 2: I did well?
Speaker 4: He followed through on the new rules to not appoint
any new Democratic chairs. It's all Republican chairs, and that
of course was a big topic of conversation in the
primaries and in the speakers race. He also left in
place a lot of Feelin's team. A lot of senior
lawmakers are either keeping their previous chairmanships like Greg bond
And on Appropriations, Morgan Meyer on Ways and Means, or
they got moved around to other very important committees like
Todd Hunters back on Calendars. Ken King moved up to
State Affairs. That's a big promotion for him, and also
got some good new blood in there. Lacey Hull, I
think is worth noting she's the third term lawmaker from Houston,
really went to bat for Burrows and gave a fiery
nominating speech for him, and stuck with him even when
she was being targeted. So she's heading a committee now.
Cole Hefner also heading a committee for the first time,
like a standing committee for the first time. So, you know,
it was interesting to see. I was interested to see
how he would manage this. There's always the potential for
the speaker to go after people who did not support
him and throw sharp elbows. He didn't do that so much.
He kind of gave his opponents, you know, subcommittee chairmanships.
He gave John Smithy a chairmanship. He was in the
running for the gavel as well. So from my read,
he's sort of kept everyone happy. I didn't see anybody
super upset about the committee appointments, and so he's off
to a decent start. He's got everybody calm down, and
now that we've got committee appointments, we can start moving
bills through the legislative process.
Speaker 1: On the House side, it seems like the early reports
on Burrows seems to be and maybe this is because
this is possible because you know, we're not moving legislation yet,
we're not having to make the toughest choices. But it
seems to be an idea of you know, people kind
of were watching him with knives out, ready to go
after him, ready to attack, and he has been trying
to sort of mend those fences, whether it's with the governor,
the lieutenant governor, or even members of the House, people
who voted against him.
Speaker 2: Would you agree with that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think also, I mean the reality
is that he's a very conservative guy. No matter how
his opponents try to paint him during the speaker race,
he's a pretty super conservative guy. He's much more conservative
than a Speaker Feeling. Speaker Feeling has admitted that he
told Evan Smith that I'd a talk at the LBJ school,
so he was he was going to be a conservative guy.
And I think he's going to pass conservative legislation. And
you know, he's doing the right things. He's starting right
on time at ten am every day, or whenever they
say they're going to gabble in, he gabbles in.
Speaker 2: He's making you happy for that.
Speaker 4: He's trying to he's trying to make sure that like
things are running on time so that he avoids that criticism.
Speaker 2: And you know, he's a savvy operator.
Speaker 4: We wrote a couple of stories about him and his
relationship with Dan Patrick. His relationship with Governor Abbott. He's
a conservative guy, he's a savvy operator. He's trying to
keep everybody happy. But you know, I think you talked
about people having their knives out. He's got his own knives.
He is, uh, he's he's a tough player in the legislature.
So I think he's ready for all this stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean, we've talked about this before, right but like
in these fights within the Republican Party in Texas, we
are again talking about like pretty you know, conservative against conservative.
So the gap between you know, Burrows and some of
his critics on the right is not massive ideologically, so
he's got, you know, a chance. But like you said,
nothing's moving yet. So right now, it's easy to start
at ten am and have everybody be friends.
Speaker 4: And the pressure will start now depending on how quickly
the Voucher's bill moves and then some of the other
Senate priorities, because Lieutenant Governor Patrick's already saying we're not
leaving without these these bills to change how bail works
here in the state. We're going to go to special sessions.
So unless those things start moving through the process, I
think he's going to start seeing some pressure here.
Speaker 2: And rightfully. So, I mean they've got they've got to
get going right right.
Speaker 1: Well, one thing that they could get going on pretty
quickly here is a piece of legislation to use state
tax dollars to help parents pay for their private school
or homeschooling expenses. This has been kind of amazingly the
dominant political issue in Texas, particularly around the Capitol for
more than two years now. There's the individual kind of
fight over this, which Abbott has sort of staked his
claim on and has made his top legislative issue at least.
He spends a lot of energy on the border as well,
but has been able to kind of take action on
that independent of the legislature. And this has been such
an issue that it has really in these past two
years not just been a issue of substance in politics
in terms of policy, but also really serve to reshape
the Texas legislature in a lot of different ways that
we can really go into. Jaden is here to talk
about that with us, and I want to start right
by saying where we stand. So the Senate has passed
SB two already. This is what we are calling the
school Voucher's Bill. It is now time for the House
to take it up. Dustin Burrough aforementioned Dustin Burrows appeared
on stage with Greg Abbott over the Long weekend over
the holiday weekend, essentially saying, you know, we're going to
introduce a measure in the House and we're going to
move on that and it will pass as well. So
we're looking at a situation we can kind of get
into whether we all believe that to be true or not.
There are some doubters at least still in that realm.
But Jaden, I want to just start by having you
sort of explain to us what this bill would actually do.
Let's start with SB two, that's the one that has
passed the Senate. Tell us what this program is, what
it would mean for the state.
Speaker 5: Right, Well, it only took I did the math last week.
It took the Senate twenty two days from the start
of the session to pass the bill. So that speaks
to someone of the urgency that they've tried to move with.
But particularly this bill is really interesting, right. I think
the premise of it is, you know, allowing the use
of a tend to up to right now, the basis
to thousand dollars per student per year. For a family
to be able to, you know, obviously use taxpayer dollars
to fund their children's private school tuition through you know,
what we all know is education savings accounts, right other
you know, people in education policies fas think of that
is like it's basically like a voucher plus system, right
where you know, there are particulars about you know how
you know families you know receive the money, but for
all intents and purposes, you know, they're they're the same, right.
And so that's the base. And then that has additional
allocations for for students with disabilities and also sets aside
roughly about two thousand dollars per year per student for
homeschooling families, right. And so that's to a piece a
lot of the homeschooling you know, groups who in recent
years have come out and kind of wanted to be
included in these programs.
Speaker 2: So that's the base of it.
Speaker 5: Where I found where I found it really interesting, and
we're kind of a lot of my attention is kind
of right now is you know, there are certain provisions
in the bill that anticipates perhaps you know, a scenario
where if demandate exceeds funding, then now we have to
figure out kind of who to prioritize, right, And the
way the bill is currently structured is they would prioritize
the overwhelming majority of those spots for students from two groups, right,
students with disabilities and then students who come from households,
you know, who live at or below five hundred percent
of the federal poverty line.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: Where that gets really interesting is that federal poverty that
that using that definition, which they define as a low
income household would mean families up to around roughly one
hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year, depending on if
you use the twenty four guidelines or the twenty five guidelines, right,
And so that's really interesting, and this created this kind
of tension in the you know, I would say more
so obviously from the Democrats. This has been a huge
talking point on the floor and then the public hearing
at the committee level of if this is a program
that's going to priory, you know, prioritize students from low
income families and students with disabilities, and you're creating a
prioritization system where students on the wealth you're in of
a spectrum, you know, are basically and you know, treated
the same as a family who is on free or
reduced lunch, for example, which is significantly you know, uh lower,
that's that's about one hundred and thirty to one hundred
and eighty five percent of federal poverty, right, so significantly
lower for a household of for you know, then how
are we how is it that we're pushing this in
the name of kind of low income families and students
with disability. So that's been the real tension. But I
will say that generalize general that generalizes kind of what
the bill is. And then obviously, you know, there's conversations
about accountability. You know, it does require, for example, that
participating in private schools have to take what's known as
a nationally norm reference test, so that's basically the SAT
or the ACT, right, but no requirement they take the STAR.
And so that's also been kind of a point of contention,
as you know, public schools are saying we wanted even
playing field. You're going to you know, implement this program,
and so those are some of the I can pause here,
but that's kind of generally speaking, a lot of the
things that folks are talking about right now.
Speaker 1: I want to get into some of the details of
that some of the criticisms of this, but let so
it's first just sort of take a step back, James
and tell me make the case for me as it
has been made by proponents, you know, Avid in particular
of why the state needs this.
Speaker 4: Well, I think the main argument, and Jayden you can
jump in, but I think they are saying that they
are upset with public schools, particularly public schools that are
in low income areas, that have not been as successful
as they could be for many, many years, and they're
saying those kids should be able to have options to
go to other schools, including private schools, and that really
any parent should be able to take their kid out
of their school that they're zoned to or that they
go to that's paid by public dollars and take that
money that they pay into the state and spend it
on the school of their choice.
Speaker 2: That I think is the argument.
Speaker 4: Of course, private school a lot more expensive than the
ten dollars ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Voucher that they are going to get, but that that
is a proposal.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, it was interesting I was watching last night.
Governor Abbot was in San Antonio, on the stage at
a Christian private school out there out that way. He
shared the stage with Dustin Borough Speaker Boroughs and also
public education share Brad Buckley, and so it was really
those were also interested to tune in to see because
it was the first time kind of I've been able
to see that dynamic on the same I was wondering
if they threw out any nuggets. You know, they're pretty
upfront sometimes in those kind of events where they talk
about things that are kind of forthcoming. But one of
the main takeaways that that that was really interesting to
me is you know, uh, you know, Governor Abbot talked
a little bit about kind of you know, frustration with
you know, and what a lot of conservatives have deemed
kind of quote unquote you know left wing and doctrine nation,
you know, of schools. You know, he cited you know,
you know recent you know news that came out about uh,
you know, a situation at in bell Or High School
where in Houston where basically you know, there was you know,
teachers who were you know, basically abiding by a student's
request to you know use different you know pronouns or
something along those lines and whatnot. And he cited that
is an example of kind of the problems that he
sees within public schools that he sees kind of this
voucher program as a solution to.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: So I said to say, is yeah, right, we've heard
a lot about kind of academic outcomes and we know,
naturally right, like public schools, I mean schools are people
are struggling to rebound from you know, the brunt of
the COVID nineteen pandemic. But making there's there's no secret
about it that this this also has to do with
kind of overall frustration with the direction you know, you know,
this feeling and I think a lot you know, after
George Floyd's murder, you saw a lot of promises from
these public institutions that came out, including public schools, We're
going to do better. Right, we need to do better
in areas of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: And in my view, right this movement in some ways right,
And I think the governor's frame of this way is
kind of pushed back to that's gone too far, right,
And so you know, this is a solution that he sees,
you know, to being able to push back and to
you know, offer and he's at a Christian school, you know,
So this is all happened at the same time where
we're seeing state officials push for more you know, you know,
religious components, Christianity in particular in public schools. But also
he's making a lot of these kind of talking points,
you know, in the background of schools that have a
particular Christian focus. So a lot of couple interesting dynamics.
That's that's also, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, that is a political argument that sort of is uh,
it's it's a very smart political argument by proponents to
make d EI the bad guy, the boogeyman. But I
mean the other thing is that some private institutions that
would benefit from this also have DEI programs and they
have DEI coordinators, right. But this is I just want
to be clear about this. This is like more of
a political talking point rather than what the original intense
I guess quote unquote was, which was to have like
better academic outcomes for kids. There there's now a conversation
about de EI, the DEI boogeyman and indoctrinating kids as
opposed to like what the actual academic outcomes are and
what would improve academic outcomes for kids.
Speaker 2: It's a smart I mean it's a smart political point.
Speaker 3: I mean this has been like a long like it's
Bouchers and getting public funding into private schools has been
like a longstanding conservative issue that has taken different forms
throughout like going back to you know when we started
sort of seeing schools get integrated after Brown view board
of education, Like this has taken different forms, that has
had different political underpinnings, you know, anti DEI last session,
I think a lot of the conversation and still now
but was around you know, sort of the boogeyman of
or the sort of talking point of parents' rights and
parents have, you know, the right to sort of direct
their children's education and these other things that we see,
you know, political catchphrases like you said, smart political advertising
of an issue that has taken different forms, but it's
been a priority nonetheless.
Speaker 4: But if a teacher at a public school is a
transgender person and they're teaching your kid math, and your
kid learns math one way or the other, like it really,
I mean it doesn't matter, right if we're just talking
about academic outcomes. But what they don't like is the
social aspect of this, the DEI part of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think the pandemic may have really
changed this conversation, right, because, as you point out, this
has been something people have been advocating for a long time.
I mean, the founding of the Texas Public Policy Foundation,
the major kind of think tank in this state, dates
back to the eighties and this was really the main
issue of the person who founded it. And you know,
I've been here long enough here covering the capital, paying
attention to the capital to be able to remember those
sort of every two years, those rallies on the capital steps,
people wearing yellow scarves calling for school choice, and they
would pass the same it and wouldn't really go anywhere.
And I think, you know, the pandemic and the murder
of George Floyd, which in many ways, you know the
social movement that arose after that. Many ways those two
things are connected. I think put a lot of fear
in a lot of parents' minds, particularly conservative minds, a
feeling of sort of lack of control, right, whether it's
I can't send my kid or I don't like my
kid wearing a mask at school, and like all these
rules that were put in place, and then yes, all
this fear about like is are the is what it
being taught taught at school is sort of getting ahead
or you know, going too far from what I'm comfortable with.
And I think that message of you can have some
more control, Like there was a lot of even just
like in my with my kids in my public schools,
the when we all sort of came back to school,
there was all this sort of nervousness among parents about
like what kind of the control they have over their
kids' education and what they can do, and whether that's
the motivating factor for Abbot and some of these other
folks are not. It's you know, it's the old raw
and manual quote don't let a good crisis go to waste.
And this has created an opportunity like never before for
this to finally pass.
Speaker 5: The money helps too, I mean talking about people, right,
jeff yas right. I think he correct me if I'm wrong.
The biggest single political donation and is in state history
with the I think when he made the six or
seven million dollar donation years ago, right, so you know,
make no mistake. I mean you talk about the kind
of national connection this has been brewing for for for
decades in the making, where you know, I read a
profile from Jeffs in Philadelphia, and it was just really
interesting that he seems to be very kind of very
private person, so for him to do kind of an
extended interview was really interesting. But he just talked about
kind of you know, this mindset of you know, if
public schools aren't you know, serving children in the way
you know that he thinks is you know best per se,
then they should shut down.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: So you know these are people you know, Abbit has
a lot of a reason, you know, you know from
before REPUBLICA and US, you know, we did some good
reporting on this, you know before you know, before this
wasn't really an issue that Governor Abbitt was, you know,
it was top of mind for him, right, but then
you start to see more of those dollars pour in,
and you know, you make whatever connections you will from that,
but it certainly plays a huge factor and kind of
you know, this rising to the top of kind of
the priority list for.
Speaker 2: A lot of these politicians.
Speaker 4: I just want to put a fine point on this,
but Governor Abbot has always been an advocate for vouchers.
He's been at those school choice rallies since twenty fifteen
when he was so since he was elected governor, he
has not been as vocal. Obviously, we talked about this
in theory.
Speaker 2: It hasn't been his.
Speaker 4: Top priority in seventeen, seventeen, or nineteen or even twenty one.
Speaker 2: It really became an issue in twenty three.
Speaker 4: And I think it's to your point, Matthew, which is
that the pandemic put a lot of nervousness in a
lot of parents. There also was legislation passed in a
lot of other states, and so then the school choice
advocates are saying, well, how come we can't get it
done here in Texas, which is they like to argue
the most conservative state. So that puts pressure on Abbot,
it puts pressure on the state legislature, and now we're
seeing pressure from national figures like Elon Musk and Donald
Trump to get this done. But that's a little bit
of like sort of the context around this.
Speaker 3: I was like, we as you mentioned, pro Public and
the Texas Tribune has done a lot of reporting on
the voucher fight, and we had a story I think
last year that was like, Texas is the largest GOP
state to not pass about your program, which is also
just funny because we're just the largest GOP state. So
the minute we do pass it, we become the largest
state to have done it. But yeah, we've been a holdout,
and I think that's you know, we've been the crown jewel.
That's the term thing.
Speaker 2: I will tell you.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, I mean, because there are a lot of
states that have passed this. I was talking with someone
a few moving Pennsylvania and yeah, it will Vermont.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I was talking to someone in Vermont, a you know,
the state of Bernie Sanders, right, and talking about how
this was the dominant issue in Texas, and they were
just kind of like, it is crazy to me that
Texas has not passed this, Vermont has this measure. So,
you know, that's been an interesting thing to watch as well. Jaden,
you said the money has affected this. I actually thought
you were going to go in a different direction with that,
because another way that this has been made possible is
because the state has a lot of money to spend, right,
And one of the best strongest political arguments against this
is that it's going to take money away from public schools.
But what we've had these past two legislative sessions is
enough money in the surplus to be able to say,
we're not going to touch your funding formulas, but we
are going to bring in this extra pot of money
that will go towards supporting these measures. But there's been
a pretty big back and forth in recent days and
weeks among particularly between Greg Abbott and Democrats about whether
this bill SB two does or does not defund public schools.
Can you help help us sort of navigate this issue
and in the sides of both sides here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, this is this is one of the
things I find really interesting, right, It at a very
basic of I'll start here, right, public schools in Texas
are primarily funded by attendance. So if you're just basically
looking at if you look at the simple fact of
there are and that will be probably if this program passes,
they're going to be public school students who leave their
public school to attend a private school under this particular program,
then by definitely, I mean technically public schools are going
to lose money. And if you look at the kind
of analysis by the Legislative Budget Board, I believe who
does the analyzes on these they you know, in collaboration
with the TEA. I believe they they look at they
make predictions on kind of generally speaking, how many students
you know, may leave, right, And it's in the I
think it's maybe in the hundreds of thousand, a couple
hundred thousand or so, as they predicted the first year,
so I have to fact check myself, but nonetheless, a
considerable number of public school students who will leave to go.
So by that definition, yes, I think, you know, it's
a fact that public schools will lose out on money.
Now there's the second part, which is what Governor Abbott
is kind of referencing, is, yes, there's a you know,
a pot of money, you know, you know the school
that public schools, you know that funds public schools. And
what they're saying is that we're pulling this from the
you know, a different you know, pot of money. And
so he's basically made the point he talked about this
last night too, is basically you're saying that, you know,
we fund infrastructure that's pulling from public schools, right, And
that's not the case. But the surplus becomes really interesting.
You was just talking to another reporter about this too.
It's like, how long is this state going to be operating?
You know, where you have all of these additional dollars
available to you, right from a surfplus standpoint, right, like
the program as predicted by the budget Board talks about
the cost of this program soaring to I think more
than four and a half billion dollars by the year
twenty thirty, right, And so are you able to maintain that?
We'll also keeping up with the needs of public schools,
which are constitutionally obligated to fund, and that also includes
you know, students with disabilities and special education services, all
these things at the state historically has already struggled to fund, right,
And so I think that's kind of it. And then
you get to kind of you know, the government recently,
it's been really interesting to see him. He and his
social media team have obviously been very aware of some
of these talking points because he's been responding directly to
lawmakers and advocates and you know about some of the
funding talking points. I think a lot of the frustration
from a lot of the public school advocates, you know,
and the you know folks who are you know, pushing
against this program has to do with the fact that
there was I think it was the big omnibus House
bill that didn't pass in twenty twenty three, you know,
had what seven billion dollars in new funds attached to
it that didn't pass, and a part of that would
have been a raise to the base amount of money
that schools will see per student. And since then, in
the last couple of years, we've seen you know, school
closures like to deficits at high rates, right, We've seen
I mean, you know, there's been you know cuts to
you know, federal funding as it relates to special education services. Right,
So there are all these things going on. So hopefully
that gets to the specific answer to your question. But
I just think it's a sore. There's truth to each
thing if you look at it, you know, a little
bit more deeply.
Speaker 2: But go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 5: So no, I was gonna say, But to me, I
always go back to the fact that if you just
look at the basic fact that you know, public schools
are funded by this metric. This metric is going to
drastically change if public school students leave to go to
private school and so by definition you're going to have
public schools that lose out on additional funding.
Speaker 4: But also the way that they're funding it. The argument
is like, okay, just to make it real simple. If
the state has ten dollars to give out, right, and
they're giving out four dollars to public schools right now,
the governor is basically saying, we're going to keep giving
them four dollars, but we're also going to give one
dollar to private school vouchers. Right, So that's a total
of five dollars for education, but that's also a dollar
extra that could have gone to public education five. So
I just want to be like really intellectually honest about
what we're discussing here, because you can spend it however
way you want it, Like the governor's team is obviously
spending his way, Democrats and public school advocates are going
to spend their way. But I want to be honest
for the audience about like the funding and.
Speaker 5: Like how how we're talking about it, and like they
can make people can make up their minds.
Speaker 2: About it, but that that is essentially what is happenings.
Speaker 1: There's a finite amount of dollars, a.
Speaker 4: Finite amount of dollars, and there's a decision being made
by the legislature and the governor on how that money
is going to be spent, and it will affect public
schools and private schools one way or the other.
Speaker 5: And there's a constitutional obligation to make sure that public
schools are adequately funded, right, And so that's part of it.
Is like, you know, regardless, you know, if you're saying
that you're you're putting you know, more money into something
that's educational related, the question becomes, why can't that go
into public schools? You know, are struggling in many different ways.
But I also think the interesting point is that everybody
seems to be operating from a different set of facts. Right,
Like if you talk to the governor's office, they're going
to tell you, well, we funded you know, public schools
provide more money than we ever have in history, right,
and the Statesman just there, you know, some really good
reporting on this, and we've been talking about this as well.
Here is you know, when you adjust that for inflation,
it tells a completely different story. And so even the
everybody seems to be operating from it exactly right. You know, Texas,
when it comes to per student funding, you know, Rakes,
I don't have a number on top of my head,
but we're really low. And when it comes to teacher salaries,
thirtieth in the nation. Right, So there, you know, there
are real concerns that that haven't been addressed, and there
is that feeling of you know, this is the this
is the system right here that five and a half
million children to tend.
Speaker 2: This should be the primary focus.
Speaker 4: Two things can be true in that they are the
highest that they've ever been and that also Texas falls
behind other states in how how much we're funing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, let's pause for a second, and here
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slash get dash involved. All right, so we're talking about
limited amounts of money here. I mean, another area where
there are finite amounts of money is just a billion
dollars currently being allocated in both proposed budgets from the
House and the Senate to support vouchers ten thousand dollars
per student. If you add up the math, if you
were to give that to every student currently in private
school right now, it would not be nearly enough. The
a billion dollars would not be nearly enough to cover
that group. You talked a little bit about how they
prioritize here, but ultimately we're talking about a very strong
possibility that quickly supply will outpace demand. What do the
supporters sorry, demand will outplace pace.
Speaker 2: The funding available exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: Yes, what do the people who are advocating these bills,
whether it's Avid, the authors or anything like that, how
do they address that concern? And what are they talking
at all about what the next step will be if
that if it plays out in that way that we.
Speaker 5: Just described, right, well, I think Senator Creighton, Brandon Creighton,
who chairs This and Education Committee and is carrying the
bill on the Senate, really I mean it goes back
to what we're talking about with the proposed lottery system,
right and you know, to answer your question directly, right,
he talked, you know, he's gotten questions about, Okay, you're
saying that this is going to prioritize low income families
and students with disabilities. In the event that this scenario
plays out where the man exceeds funding, then you know,
if this is going to do that, then why do
we have such generous kind of flexibility within that lottery
system itself?
Speaker 2: Right? And he's he's.
Speaker 5: Going on the record and said publicly, right like, we
don't want to exclude the middle class, right, we want
to make sure that families who whether they you know,
have a child who's you know, being bullied in a
public school, or you know, whether there's any kind of
frustration they have, they have flexibility for this. He brings
up the scenario of a teacher and a firefighter with
four kids. He's like, we want to make sure that
you know, they are able to access this program as
they kind of you know work you know, essential jobs
in the community. Right, they should also have have you know,
you know, this particular access. But you know it goes
back to you know, one thing I you know, want
to bring up here, which is really you know, interesting
to me is because we can get caught up in
eligibility conversations about who access is this, so on and
so forth. Right, there's a difference between eligibility and access.
And at the end of the day, let's say you're
a family that gets through the prioritization system, you go
to a private school, and the private school says you
don't meet our standards academically whatever it may be, so
we don't accept you. I have not seen the answer
to the questions of what happens after that, right, because
if this is all about helping these students, you know,
in other states, for example, you've seen in the past
where some you know, private schools that participate have to
have certain enrollment requirements, right like you have to, you know,
but that doesn't seem to exist in the in the
bills that currently kind of stand. And what we've seen
in other programs across the state, over overwhelmingly with these
universal programs, that the vast majority of users end up
being kids who are already in private school, right, who
are whose families could already afford private tools, private school tuition,
and excuse me to some extent, and so to me
that that brings forth the question of you know, Senator
Creating has talked a lot about you know, this bill.
We're trying to learn from all of the other mistakes
that you know that other states have made, you know,
as a relates to this program. But the way the
program is structured in the bill right now, as a
reporter who's like look breaking down this stuff, I'm really
struggling to see how from an access standpoint, Texas is
going to be that much different from the way the
other programs operate. As it relates to who benefits from
these programs the most well, and a lot.
Speaker 3: Of private schools cost far more than ten thousand dollars
a year. So a lot of these, I mean, to
your point, like a you know, a low income family
that wants to send their child to a private school
if that private school is twenty five thousand dollars a year,
as some of these you know schools are like having
fifteen thousand, right, fifteen thousand dollars or a year of
a bill is not accessible. And so I think, as
you said, in other states, we've certainly seen the people
who are able to take advantage of this are people
who are already accessing those and you know, to act.
A huge sticking point in Texas on this has been
the rural communities or there are no private schools, and
so you know those areas are teachers Yeah right, yeah,
like they're not seeing that they're not you know, sort
of citing the same issues that maybe people in urban
areas are with their public schools. But then you know
they're not gonna be able, not gonna send their kids
two hours to a private school.
Speaker 5: And what are also to I would I would you know,
I pose the question too is like, ultimately, if this
past is, what are the characteristics of the private schools
that choose to participate, right, because we've seen in other states,
is some of the private schools that you know, you
might deem kind of the best, right, whatever metric you
might use to define that, they don't participate because they're
probably like you know, we're already find so and we've
seen you know, some like for example, Governor Ava had
a press conference in maybe after the election, but he
had a press conference at a Christians uh yeah, Christian
school that was on the verge of closing in recent years.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: So also it becomes a question of like the quality
of the actual education that comes into and what we've seen.
This is one thing that that kind of I guess
frustrates me as somebody who's like trying to like wrap
my head around all this stuff. Is we hear a
lot about academic outcomes, and what we've seen with these
universal programs is that, I mean, you look at the
state like Louisiana, it's pretty common knowledge from you know,
pro vout your folks, anti vulture folks, academic results were
abysmal in that state at one point, as you tied
it to as you looked at kind of public school outcomes,
you know, relative cases of performance on kind of centered
our tests and relatives to what they did in public school, right, abysmal. Right,
And so then the metric of how we define, you know,
whether this program is successful or not has started to change.
Now it becomes about it's not about academic outcomes. In
was about parental satisfaction, right, for parents happy about it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: So I just think there are a lot of these
kind of I know that kind of goes a little
bit maybe off of kind of what we were talking about,
but I just think it's really interesting overall when we
talk about ultimately who's going to access these programs, and
then how do we measure whether the programs actually live
up to the promises that officials are making.
Speaker 4: Could we just all right, I just want to take
it a step back and also acknowledge that there are
problems with public schools.
Speaker 2: Right there are public schools.
Speaker 4: There are public schools that have been failing in the
state for a long time, and that is a frustration
of conservatives, and it is a frustration of parents. It's
a frustration of low income parents because they want the
best for their kids. If they could afford private school,
maybe they would consider private school. But as a former
low income kid who went to a not good public school,
to your point, Jaden, unless it was like a Catholic
school that was tied to the churches that like kids
in my neighborhood went to, we didn't know any other
private schools, and we had no idea how to get
an application to one of these schools, and we probably
wouldn't have been accepted to these schools because.
Speaker 2: The jump is just so big.
Speaker 4: So I think I just want to acknowledge the fact
that there are problems with the public education system that
conservatives are rightly I think, upset about. But it's the
details and like how do we answer these things? And
some of these things, I don't think that SB two
is going to be the definitive thing.
Speaker 2: Right, we're waiting for the House bill.
Speaker 4: Maybe some of these questions get answered in the House
bill and it looks a little bit different because that
was the sticking point, right, the House was a sticking point,
And there are new legislators who are more open to
a voucher system. But everyone keeps saying the devil is
in the details, and what are those details? And I mean,
hopefully we'll find out in the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 3: I mean, I do think there's like somewhat bipartisan, longstanding
bipartisan agreement, right that like their public schools need you know,
there's different ways that public schools are not serving communities
in the way that ideally exactly right. It's like we
agree on that. Like almost everything in Texas, almost everything
in politics, we agree on the problem. There's two hugely
different approaches solution, right, the conservative approach tends look more
like Boucher's. The other side would say, like, just give
that money into the public schools. Right, if you take
let people leave, you were never going to fix the
public schools, and you're just going to have the people
who can't who don't know.
Speaker 4: How We've seen privatization have that impact on other parts
of asolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, I mean, it is a conservative belief that
the free market leads to improved outcomes for customers, right
and right now, the conservative case for this would be
that there are a lot of kids who are stuck
in schools that are not performing well that essentially have
a monopoly over the students in that system. You are
creating a system where they might now have some money
attached to them, which could create new schools to possibly
pop up to serve those communities. You're also putting some
financial market pressure on the schools that are already in
place to improve in ways that may not have existed before.
Speaker 4: But I think even Republicans will argue like that, you know,
there are charter schools that have been set up to
address this kind of thing too, and right.
Speaker 3: It was been like trying to fix this for a
long time. I think the counter argument, right is like,
if you the free market, you know, public school is
inherently built to be public, we serve everyone. You potentially
hollow out those public schools. You leave only the people
that sort of don't get into the private schools or
can't access a private school. That's solving the problem for individuals,
maybe not for the public. So these are two different
approaches the exact same problem.
Speaker 5: Okay, So go ahead, I was gonna say, I mean,
there's a couple of things. There's a lot there, but
you don't have to answer everything is this is the
things that keep me up at night, right, And you
know you have to look at you know, there's a
couple of things, right, because there is a there is
a narrative out there and depending on how you judge
a public school, right, that that public schools are you know, feeling,
aren't you know, you know we know that you know
from star scores and national tests, right, there have been
you know, struggles for students and uh, you know, schools
to rebound. Right, you know the one thing I think
about often, right, and I go back to history, right,
because if you look, first of all, we're talking about
an educational system where you know, largely has struggle to
even fully integrate, right overall resistance to those things, right,
And so you're talking about generations of low income families
who are predominantly black and brown who have struggled to
catch up because of those institutional barriers you know that
are in place, right, And so you know that's one
thing I think about. But you know, also you know,
as we talk about kind of you know, the meaning
that the institutions and you know, how we judge public
schools also differs. Right, if you ask the Texas Education Agency,
you ask Governor Abbott, you know even you know, you
look at Houston, I Z and Superintendent Mike Miles, Right,
he's a very interesting guy. You know, read about him
and then talk to him once you know everything that
he looks at is all driven by the standardized testing scores. Right,
And I would I would, I would venture out to say, right,
there are public schools out here that are that function
in so many more ways, particularly in our rural communities, right,
but in urban as well, Right, that function in so
many more ways to try to meet the moment and
making meet for students.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: I know of a rural school district that literally has
implemented washing machines to wash clothes for kids because they're
struggling with chronic apsenteeism. And you know, students, I show
up the class and one reason they know is like
maybe they don't have clean clothes or adequate resources at home, right,
And so I just think we as a general public
right have to understand that, you know, standardized testing scores
as a result of no Child Left behind the policy
as we look at nationally.
Speaker 2: Right, all we talk about is a.
Speaker 5: Test, but there are so many more factors that go
into whether or not a public school is meeting the moment.
And I bet you you know, you go on the ground,
you actually talk to kind of lower income family and
families that struggle. Right, there are things that public schools
are doing right now, particularly as it relates to you know,
you know, students with disabilities or whatever it may be,
that you know, services and uh, you know, benefits that
they can't find elsewhere because of you know, uh you know,
whether it be private school or whatever it may be.
Speaker 2: So I just think that's in.
Speaker 3: Some ways a public school. You know, part of its
value is that it does it is there right, It
serves everyone. It is before care, aftercare, It allows parents
to you know, go to work. Like there is some
inherent underlying value to that that private schools also have value,
but are not you know, they're not saying we are
we open our doors for everybody.
Speaker 2: And it's not even just a Texas like.
Speaker 3: Nationally, that's the promise of public school And.
Speaker 5: I was going to say, too, have we seen a
educational system in the country, right, Texas included where public
schools actually have all the resources they need, right, because
to me it becomes interesting.
Speaker 2: Right and.
Speaker 1: Right, But I meant the city in those places you
could argue that the advantage is less what resources the
schools have, but more the resources the parents have and
the ability to read to their kids and some proper
nutrition and yeah, and and like yeah, you know, the
it's hard to separate those things when we're so divided
by income and other factors.
Speaker 3: So in the end them is everything.
Speaker 1: Exactly Okay, So I want to I want to get
I want to drill into what's still to be figured
out here because I think the two chambers are in
agreement right around how much they want to spend. Right,
it seems like we've we've sort of zeroed in on
this ten thousand base amount right that that parents would
provide the sticking points. The things that need to be
ironed out, It seems like, are what if any accountability
measures are in place, right, and and basically, how do
you prioritize when you reach the inevitable point when demand
outpaces supply? Right? Are those Are there other things that
need to be figured out between those two that are
that that feel major to you?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I mean the one thing I'm looking out for, you know,
and we're expecting this week. Uh, you know, Speaker Borroughs
talked about you know, they're going to follow their priority
Priority bill this week, right, and so what'll be interesting
to me. Obviously they'll wrestle a little bit over you know,
be interesting to see kind of you know, what they
allocate per year per student. But to me, it goes
back to kind of the prioritization, right, because the one
thing I thought about is like, you have some of
the kind of more rule lawmakers who maybe the five
hundred percent of poverty thresholders not fly with them, right,
Like maybe you know, they have a better understanding of
you know, we have you know, families in our community
who are really struggling. And so that was one thing
that I kind of aplied early on. It's like, it'll
be interesting to see kind of what the competing like,
how they kind of you know, think about that particularly
as it relates to also special education and students with disabilities.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: You know, one thing that that you know, I found
is a really interesting nugget. I was listening to speaker
Boroughs talk to some you know, civic leaders and Austin
a couple of weeks ago, and you know, he kind
of revealed how, you know, he has children with learning disabilities, right,
and so he talked about getting it right with special education.
We're gonna the House is gonna lead the way on this, right.
And so, but the one thing to watch out for
with that though, is like Senator Cragon on the other hand,
he's been very reluctant to to to impose any particular
requirements on private schools in these particular programs.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: He wants them to have kind of the flexibility and
the freedom to kind of operate, you know, as they
as they feel they need to write. And so again,
I don't know that it'll be It'll be in the details, right.
You talk about doublin details of kind of what the
things are, but those are those are things that immediately
come to mind as to kind of what are the
kind of differing you know, details that may come up
between each chamber that could potentially be kind of points
that they need to iron out together.
Speaker 1: So we are talking about seventy eight seventy nine, as
Abbot calls them, heart vouch your support hardcore. You know,
there's and there's been some some folks who would fall
under that hardcore camp who have quivvled with different details
and things like that. There are people who you talk
to in the legislature right now who still believe that
there are major roadblocks to this happening.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You go one way, you lose some votes, You go
the other way, you lose some votes. Is that magical thinking, James.
Speaker 2: I think they're going to get something done.
Speaker 4: I think they'll have to sort out some of these issues,
particularly like on special education because you can see sort
of from Senator Creighton's point, you don't want to impose
a new requirement on these private schools that don't previously
have these requirements.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, if the House is really
invested in making sure that kids with special needs also
have access to to this program, then they're going to
have to sort something out. And I think there's going
to be more sorting on accountability standards. But I do
think that the votes are there, the pressure from the
governors there, the pressure from other places are there. I
think they'll figure out something to get done. It's just like,
what does that look like in the end, And I
don't think that it's going to be everything that's in
the Senate buil that passed.
Speaker 1: All right, Eleanor I'm going to direct the last question
to you, and it's going to be maybe a hard question.
Speaker 2: We'll see.
Speaker 1: But this was the number one issue on avis radar
last legislative session. The House succeeded in blocking it due
to rural Republicans and Democrats. The impact of that so
far has been billions of dollars in funding that would
have gone to the schools that didn't, the ousting of
many rural Republicans, the election of what I think we
could all agree is the most politically conservative Texas House
in state history. The emergence of Greg Abbott as really
like Greg Abbott sort of finding his voices in the
right word, his power right in the way that he
I think wields more influence over the legislature than he
has in his entire time, and uh, you know, strikes
fear in members of the legislature in a way beyond
any other time, and that he's he's served in an office.
How can we not view the decision of you know,
particularly opponents, particularly the Democrat side of those opponents as
a to block it in twenty twenty three as anything
beyond just a complete disaster and a thing that has
completely backfired on their party and what they want to
see the state accomplished as a whole overall.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this is the I think forever balance
that we see from the Democrats and people who are
interested in blocking sort of the Republican agenda in Texas
that they have to play, which is like, if we
stop this thing, is there just a worse thing waiting
behind the next corner. And recently it seems like yes, right,
I mean we've seen that with the voting legislation, with
abortion legislation with them, you know, obviously with school of vouchers.
It's like the Republican machine on the issues that they
choose to prioritize seems to at this point to overstate it.
I'm sure, like have no limit, right, Like they can
just like run like a train right down the track
and if there's something in their way, it might take
them longer, but they will get there ultimately. So yeah,
it's a I think it's very hard to be a
minority party for this long and not look back and
think like, did we the things we block? Did they
not just like cause something worse down the road from
their perspective?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Well, any any like you want to talk about, like
the impact on high school sports sports question?
Speaker 3: I was like, I have reached the end. I will
just say, like, Jayden, you, I mean, when did you
started on this beat? Relatively recently, but man, you know
a lot. When did you start?
Speaker 5: I started here in June. Yeah, I was covering like
criminal justice before. So it's amazing some intersection, but not
obviously as much.
Speaker 1: Well, it has been great to have you on. We
really appreciate you lending your insight. Thank you also to
our sponsors, the Coalition of Education Funding and Raise your
Hand Texas. Thank you to our producer Chris No. Thank
you to our producer Rob who was in Japan. He
abandoned Chris all.
Speaker 2: That like a business trip board.
Speaker 3: That's just like, yeah, when he comes back, we'll get
him to do a full segment on the trip.
Speaker 1: Rob is also the composer of our trip cast theme.
Do you think he's performing the theme in Japan? The
fans are.
Speaker 3: Asking, so our Japanese audience.
Speaker 2: All right, thanks I we'll talk to you all next week.
Speaker 4: M