Liberty Report: No Half-Measures on School Choice

This commentary was written by Don Huffines exclusively for The Dallas Express and published here.

That school choice is even a remotely controversial topic in Texas is sad. That this debate pertains to the most precious resource on the planet — children — makes it worse. And what our representatives in Austin are doing to settle matters can best be described by another, perhaps more colorful, adjective.

But this is a family newspaper.

If you have been dodging the education wars for the past few decades, you might have missed the excitement and success the school choice movement has enjoyed. Allowing parents to control the educational destiny of their children has turned out — surprise, surprise — a wildly popular concept. Moreover, that schools must, in a sense, compete with one another for students, the same kind of market forces that make America the wonder of the economic world are now at play in the pedagogic one. The results are fantastic.

School choice has been the subject of much more back-and-forth in the current legislative session than it has at any other point in the last few years. As education freedom options are considered, however, Austin should spend time reflecting on the four main components of an effective and efficient school choice program.

First, school choice should operate under free market conditions, without government funds, unhindered by government restrictions.

Second, it should foster competition among education providers — public and private.

Third, it should be universal; if school choice is not universal, it creates special interests and pits people against each other.

And fourth, it should return the power of making decisions about their children’s education to parents.

At the moment, several related education bills are being considered that should command your attention, including Senate Bill 8, House Bill 619, HB 4340, HB 4807, and HB 4969. While each offers additional flexibility for parents of students, none of them meet our fourth standard of parental empowerment.

Specifically, the bills considered this session all use state funds for student Education Savings Accounts (ESAs). While ESAs are the best way to increase school choice, how they operate in the bills under consideration is flawed.

SB 8 appropriates new funds, while several other bills use a system of tax credits. In both cases, the funds are state funds managed by the Texas Comptroller or the Texas Education Agency. The problem with this is that state funds almost always come with state restrictions. In the case of these bills, all of them restrict the ability of parents to use ESAs in the ways they think best for their children.

ESAs should be funded with tax credits. However, the ESAs should be designed so that the funds never come into the state’s coffers. Parents and businesses should be able to redirect their tax payments to private scholarship organizations in such a way that the funds are considered private and thus not subject to government restrictions.

Privately funding ESAs in this way will accomplish two things. First, it will level the playing field currently tilted toward government schools; parents will have much broader access to private schools and homeschooling. Second, it will protect against a government takeover of private K-12 education, as we have already witnessed in higher education.

Parents and many other Texans are waking up to the fact that government schools are a menace to our children. They also understand that ESAs would break the government monopoly on education for most Texans and vastly increase access to quality education for all Texas children.

The Texas Legislature should amend and pass one of the ESA bills under consideration. But, as in education, no half-way measures.