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The Blast: Chip Roy calls out Texas leadership [1]
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Date: 2025-02
Yesterday, the Texas House released its plan to pass education savings accounts in Texas. The Texas Tribune already gave you a rundown of House Bill 3 and how it’s different from the Senate plan, but let’s go a bit deeper for our Blast readers.
Senate Bill 2, the upper chamber’s ESA bill, would give families a flat $10,000 for most children. HB 3, instead, asks the Texas Education Agency to run the numbers before every school year.
HB 3 would have the education commissioner sum up the projected state and local portion of public school funding on a per-student basis. The proposal then says ESAs are equal to 85% of that amount. We don’t know the exact result of the formula yet, but House Speaker Dustin Burrows says it will be more than $10,000. Regardless, it would scale with public school funding.
As an estimate, following page 13 of the TEA’s public education funding transparency report from December, the per-student funding for FY 2023 would come out to $12,815, of which 85% would be about $10,893.
Public Education Committee Chair Brad Buckley told reporters that idea came from talking to House members.
“It’s a way to make sure that, should funding rise in public schools, ESA amounts would rise. If funding dips, then those dollars would go down as well on the ESA side,” Buckley said. “It connects the two.”
That “linkage” — his words — also means the state would never spend more per student on ESAs than it does on public education.
We always expected the House’s ESA plan to be a bit more nuanced than the Senate version, because the House is where the anti-voucher Republicans have previously derailed “school choice” bills. Anti-voucher members fear that the process of expanding ESAs year over year would undercut public education spending. HB 3 tries to address that.
Beyond the core program, the plans differ when it comes to students with disabilities. HB 3 would give students with disabilities access to the money allocated in their individualized education program, although no more than $30,000 total. SB 2 would give students with disabilities $11,500 instead of $10,000. However, in cases where a student is both home-schooled and has a disability, SB 2 would give the students an additional $500 each year.
The House plan caps ESAs for home-schooled students at $2,000 while the Senate plan puts the floor at $2,000 and allows for additional appropriations to that pot.
Buckley told reporters he’s letting members digest the bill for now, and he expects his committee to take up the bill “soon.” As of now, the Public Education Committee is set to meet Tuesday, but that’s all for updates from the Texas Education Agency and on the Tri Agency Workforce Initiative.
The other half of the “two-step” is House Bill 2, which would increase education spending by $7.6 billion and is the “omnibus” education bill. But Burrows also announced a flurry of other education bills yesterday: House Bill 4, a third Buckley bill, would repeal the STAAR Test and restore the A-F Accountability System.
House Bill 6, by Rep. Jeff Leach , R-Plano, would establish the Teachers’ Bill of Rights, which is focused on discipline and classroom environment.
, R-Plano, would establish the Teachers’ Bill of Rights, which is focused on discipline and classroom environment. House Bill 100, by Rep. Terri Leo Wilson , R-Galveston, would prohibit school districts from purchasing instructional material rejected by the State Board of Education.
, R-Galveston, would prohibit school districts from purchasing instructional material rejected by the State Board of Education. House Bill 123, by Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, would focus on early literacy and mathematics. In total, Burrows says the House’s education bills increase public education funding by more than $9 billion. The Senate’s budget calls for only a $5.3 billion increase in public education spending. However, both chambers have settled on $1 billion for ESAs.
As of now, it seems like Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is happy to see the House proposal. His office said they are “excited to see it closely aligns” with the Senate plan. Now comes time to work out the kinks.
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