1 out of every 10 American kids attend a public school in Texas, so it’s important to keep an eye on what the Lone Star State is doing when it comes to K-12 education.
This year, while the Texas Legislature is in session, the state’s decision-makers are busy on several fronts that will impact children and their families for years to come.
Courtesy of several articles appearing in The Texas Tribune a few days ago, let’s take a look at the latest K-12 news from Texas:
Voucher Bills
“In public hearings, during Capitol floor debates and in rooms packed with their constituents, Texas lawmakers have pitched school vouchers as a tool that will primarily benefit low-income students – and not just, as their critics argue, offer taxpayer dollars to families already sending their children to private schools.”
“’These are parents living paycheck by paycheck,’ said Governor Greg Abbott at a recent private school event in San Antonio. Families supporting his top legislative priority, he added, do ‘everything they can’ to provide the best education pathway for their children.”
“House Bill 3 and Senate Bill 2 – the signature school voucher proposals filed this year by each lawmaking chamber – would qualify virtually any family in Texas to receive taxpayer dollars through state-managed education savings accounts to fund their children’s private school tuition. If demand exceeds the $1 billion in proposed funding for the program, Republican lawmakers say they want to serve the most vulnerable Texans first.”
“’Both chambers are prioritizing low-income and special needs students, creating the largest school choice launch in the nation,’ said Senator Brandon Creighton, the Conroe Republican who leads the Senate Education Committee, in late February. ‘School choice’ is a term used by voucher proponents who believe parents should have more options for where to send their kids beyond their local public school.”
…
Library Books
“A bill that would give parents more power over which books their children can read in public school libraries will soon go before Texas senators for a full vote.”
“The measure was approved Tuesday by a 10-1 vote in the Senate Committee on Education K-16. Introduced last month by Senator Angela Paxton, Republican from McKinney, Senate Bill 13 would represent an overhaul of how schools decide what books are placed in their libraries.”
“SB13 would require that school boards, rather than librarians, have the final say over which new books or materials can be put in school libraries. The bill would also create a way for parents to challenge any library book and have it removed from shelves until the school board decides whether that material is allowed.”
“Under SB13, each school district would also be required to have local advisory councils – with parents of students in the district making up a majority of voting members – that would recommend which books should be added and removed form school libraries. Additionally, the bill would not allow schools to have library materials that have ‘indecent content or profane content,’ which can include books that use ‘grossly offensive’ language.”
…
School Safety
“Since Texas passed a law in 2023 requiring public school districts to have an armed officer at each campus, districts have repeatedly asked the state for more money to fulfill the requirement.”
“In this year’s legislative session, lawmakers have pledged to increase school safety funding. The 2023 law, House Bill 3, increase that annual safety allotment to $10 per student and $15,000 per school in a district.”
“The question legislators face this session: will they come close to increasing that allotment to the $100 per student that districts say is necessary to finally fill the funding gap?”
“HB 3 passed in response to the 2022 shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde that left 19 children and two teachers dead. But since it passage, more than half of Texas school districts do not meet the one armed officer per school requirement, according to a January Senate Education Committee report.”
In addition,
“State Representative Don McLaughlin, who was mayor of Uvalde when a gunman tore through the town’s peace and killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school, has filed a bill aimed at addressing some of the failures that plagued the police response to that shooting.”
“House Bill 33, filed…by the freshman lawmaker, would mandate law enforcement agencies across the state to create crisis response policies, a provision that takes aim at the nearly 400 law enforcement officers who waited more than an hour before confronting the shooter who had barricaded himself in a classroom – a decision that went against nationwide active shooter protocols.”
School Funding
“A group of Texas superintendents this week had an opportunity to argue why lawmakers should increase the base amount of state funding their schools receive for each student. But not all of them did so, leading Democrats to criticize the district leaders for not taking a more assertive approach to an issue threatening the stability of public education.”
“The exchange between school administrators and Democrats came while the House Public Education Committee conducted the first of two public hearings over the chamber’s priority school funding legislation, House Bill 2, a sweeping measure authored by Representative Brad Buckley, Republican from Salado, would increase schools’ base funding, raise merit pay for teachers, enhance state support for education preparation and overhaul how Texas pays for special education.”
The Ten Commandments
“A Texas Senate committee on Tuesday advanced bills that would require public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments and allow districts to provide students with time to pray during school hours.”
“The vote sends the two bills to the full Senate for consideration and is the latest sign of confidence by conservative Christians that courts will codify their opposition to church-state separation into federal law and spark a revitalization of faith in America.”
Here are a few predictions regarding what will happen, public education-wise, in Texas:
Vouchers will pass the Texas Legislature and become law in Texas, but the state will miss an opportunity to move toward “learner choice” when they embrace “school choice” and allow vouchers to be used only for private school enrollment instead of homeschooling, learning pod, and microschool support.
Because vouchers will pass, funding for traditional public schools will increase. This is the trade-off we’ve seen in other states and Texas will be no different.
The library book legislation will pass, making it increasingly difficult to work as a school librarian in the Lone Star State.
The Texas Legislature will increase funding for school safety, but with the number of guns currently in the state, good luck trying to keep Texas kids safe from school shootings.
Finally, regarding The Ten Commandments, I’ve always been a staunch supporter of separating church and state when it comes to public education. But given the course this country is on right now; we might need something like those ten rules to help us dig out of the hole we currently find ourselves in.
Just kidding.
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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