Dan Patrick endorses Texas House’s voucher plan, clearing path to final approval

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Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Friday recommended that the Senate, which he tightly controls, adopt the House’s voucher plan, forgoing a negotiation between the two chambers and clearing the way for the Legislature to finally approve school vouchers after years of falling short.

“I’ve fought for school choice for my entire legislative career,” Patrick wrote on social media. “I am recommending the Senate concur with Senate Bill 2, the largest school choice launch in American history.”

The Senate voted out its version of a voucher plan, which differed slightly from the House plan, in February.

Voucher bills — a priority of Patrick’s and Gov. Greg Abbott — had failed repeatedly in the House in previous sessions, with a coalition of rural Republicans and Democrats banding together to sink each proposal.

But after Abbott successfully forced out a number of anti-voucher Republicans ahead of this year’s legislative session, in addition to an 11th-hour pressure campaign he waged on wobbly lawmakers, the House on Wednesday approved a plan for parents to use tax dollars for their children’s private school tuition.

Patrick’s recommendation to adopt the House’s bill paves the way for its final passage and allows lawmakers to avoid a negotiation process that would necessitate another vote in both chambers. And it smooths the bill’s path to Abbott’s desk, securing one of the biggest political victories of the governor’s career.

“Ready to sign this bill into law,” Abbott said in a social media post Friday.

The chambers’ proposals largely aligned, but differed in key areas like how much money participating students should receive, which applicants should take priority and how the program should accommodate students with disabilities.

The House version of Senate Bill 2 would initially put $1 billion in taxpayer dollars toward education savings accounts that families could use for private-school tuition and other school-related expenses, like textbooks, transportation and therapy. The bill would tie the voucher program’s per-student dollars to public education funding so the amount available to each participating student would increase when public schools receive more money and dip when public education funding declines.

Most participating families would receive an amount equal to 85% of what public schools get for each student through state and local funding — roughly somewhere between $10,300 and $10,900 per year for each child, according to a recent legislative budget analysis. Children with disabilities would be eligible for the same funding as other students, plus up to $30,000 in additional money, an amount based on what the state would regularly spend on special education services for that student in a public school. Home-schoolers could receive up to $2,000 per year.

Almost any school-age child eligible to attend a public school — including those already enrolled in a private school — could participate in the program. However, lawmakers recently approved a change to the bill that would allow only U.S. citizens or people lawfully in the country to receive vouchers.

The proposal would limit the state to spend no more than $1 billion on the program during the first biennium. If public demand exceeds the funding available, the bill would give priority eligibility to students with disabilities and families it considers low income. It would also limit funding for people without disabilities or from wealthier households — defined as a family of four making about $156,000 or greater — to 20% of the program’s total budget each year.

Those additions have indicated a desire by top Republicans to appease their rural colleagues feeling pressure from their communities to oppose vouchers or who have been on the fence about whether to vote for the bill.

The proposal would also prioritize students who exit public schools over those already enrolled in private schools. Budget experts estimate that about 24,500 public school students, out of the state’s 5.5 million, would leave for private schools that year. Participating students would begin enrolling during the 2026-27 school year.

Unlike public schools, which are generally required by law to educate every child in their community who seeks admission, the bill would not require private schools to accept certain students who do not meet their admissions standards. That means private schools can still deny any child the state places first in line for eligibility. Higher-income families whose children were already attending private schools have primarily benefited from the large-scale voucher programs enacted in other states.

SB 2 does not require that participants take the same state standardized tests administered to public school students each year — the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR. Some voucher critics and school officials have said that distinction creates an unfair playing field because the state often uses those exams to judge the effectiveness of districts and their teachers.

The voucher bill does require that participating students take a nationally recognized exam. It also mandates an annual report from the state that would include data on participating children’s demographics, testing results, and preparedness for college, career and the military.

Studies in multiple states have shown that vouchers do not consistently lead to improved scores for low-income students, the group many Texas lawmakers say they want to help most. Such programs have even resulted in steep academic declines.

Three academics in 2017 wrote in the Journal of Economic Literature that some evidence suggests that as competition from voucher programs increases, test scores in public schools slightly improve. But, they said, more research was needed to fully understand the programs’ impact.

Voucher advocates often note that the benefits of the programs are best measured through parental satisfaction.

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