Texas legislators want to pass universal voucher program for students

President of the Texas American Federation of Teachers, Zeph Capo, joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast to discuss the ongoing battle over school vouchers. Capo talked about the state senate's proposed voucher program and what the state has already experienced with a voucher program.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been trying to pass voucher laws similar to those passed in other states in recent months. There has been a voucher bill passed by the state Senate, however, the state House has not met on the topic. There’s a significant division between the best direction for the future of Texas schools. Capo hopes the Texas AFT’s efforts will result in the House not passing a voucher bill.

The universal vouchers being proposed by the Texas State Senate would take $8,000 per student out of the system and place the funding in individual school’s operating funds. These schools could be private or run by different organizations, robbing public schools of the funding needed to operate, Capo said. He went on to describe the impact of the vouchers on public school operations. In short, Capo explained that all the expenses that would’ve been covered by the funding will now become the responsibility of the remaining students, creating a more significant cost to the local families to operate programs within public schools.

Texas currently has a voucher program that was meant to target low-income students who were caught in failing schools. Unfortunately, that was not the actual use of those vouchers, as they were put in place to try and move on to a universal voucher program, Capo said. He pointed out several cases from parents in Arizona and charter schools in Texas as examples of an abuse of the voucher system. Capo hopes that Texas will be able to avoid the universal voucher system and work on improving the state's public education system. 

To hear more from Capo, please listen to the show above.