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Imagine making the claim that preventing parents from choosing where and how their children are educated is a “conservative value.”
This is precisely the argument made by an organization of faith leaders called Pastors for Texas Children. The group is actively trying to lobby members of the Texas State legislature to vote against sweeping school choice bills championed by Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republicans.
Newsweek reported:
A thousand congregational leaders with the Pastors for Texas Children are mobilizing to fight against legislative efforts seeking to expand school choice—an umbrella term for options that allow families to choose alternatives to public schools—across the state. They’re raising concerns that the Republican governor is trying to build a national profile at the expense of the millions of children who could be left behind in an underfunded public school system.
Reverend Charles Johnson, the founder of the organization, told the news outlet that the education savings account (ESA) that is being touted by Republicans across the nation are “certainly not the needs of Texans.” He referred to the many students who “live in rural communities that rely on public education.”
“The governor is not covering our interests,” Johnson said. “He’s covering his own crass, political national interest and that’s the reason for the push this year.”
Republicans in Texas have long struggled to pass comprehensive school choice legislation. The endeavor has met with resistance from Democrats and some Republicans, who are uncomfortable with the idea of letting parents choose where their kids go to school.
But now, things might be changing in the Lone Star State. The past two years, in which education has become a hot-button, have placed the issue front and center in national politics. In 2023, Republicans in Texas might just have enough momentum to enact more widespread measures to benefit parents and children.
Nevertheless, folks like Reverend Johnson are hoping they can defeat attempts to give more options to Texas parents. He insisted that the Lone Star State currently does not have an ESA program in place because of its conservative history.
“Public education is a conservative value,” he said. “Texans value local control and limited government. We—community-by-community, town-by-town, neighborhood-by- neighborhood—own our public schools. We run our public schools.”
Others who criticize school choice claims that programs that help parents send their children to private schools take funding from public schools. “Since school funding is tied to enrollment, if more kids are pulled out of public schools, public schools are forced to make financial adjustments for the students who remain, and who are typically from low-income families,” according to Newsweek.
The author also notes that parents’ concerns over critical race theory (CRT) and transgender ideology being pushed in K-12 classrooms are pushing them to seek other educational options for their kids. However, Johnson downplayed this issue, claiming they are not present in Texas schools.
“You may be talking about L.A. [Los Angeles] or New York schools, but you ain’t talking about our school,” Johnson argued. “Texas is a big, old state, with a lot of rural communities that simply don’t have private schools. So, those rural Republicans, who are quite conservative, they are pro-public education.”
Johnson’s group, along with several others, have been showing up to the Texas Capitol to visit with lawmakers in the hopes of convincing them to vote against school choice. However, it seems that in this current legislative session, they might be facing a steep uphill battle. The outcry coming from Texas parents might just be too loud for legislators to ignore. The fact that most Republicans are on board with school choice is also a bad omen for those favoring public schools.
“It will be a tussle and rural Republicans know it,” Johnson acknowledged. “So far, they’re holding the line, but the governor is working them hard. It’s going to be an interesting fight and it’ll take all the forces, will, stamina and mobilizing strength on the anti-voucher side to block it.”
There are several fatal flaws in Johnson’s argument. For starters, the notion that CRT and gender ideology is not an issue in Texas schools is demonstrably false. There are several reports of Texas classrooms infusing curriculum with these problematic teachings. Multiple schools have been found to have sexually inappropriate material in their libraries. It is one of the reasons why Texas parents have been yanking their children out of public schools in order to homeschool them in record numbers.
Even further, the idea that trapping kids in public schools is a “conservative value” is ludicrous on its face. Authentic conservatives favor free market principles over government excess, meaning that if a school is failing to provide an adequate level of education, they are not entitled to force parents to keep their children there. By promoting competition in the educational system, Texas can achieve better outcomes instead of just hoping the government will somehow improve on its own.
Moreover, a survey taken last year showed that the majority of Texans living in rural areas favor school choice, despite the claims made by folks like Reverend Johnson. The fact of the matter is that public opinion is on the side of school choice and against the teachers unions–who are paid big bucks to ensure substandard education and maximum indoctrination. At this point, it is only a matter of time before Texas parents gain the ability to choose how their children are educated.
