Primary wins may tilt debate toward Texas school vouchers

Texas House District 56 Republican nominee Pat Curry of Waco supports some form of vouchers, as does District 13 incumbent Angelia Orr, R-Itasca, despite her former opposition.

Their Democratic opponents hold anti-voucher positions they hope will resonate with voters worried that subsidizing private school enrollment will undermine public education and fail to help low-income students.

But the Democrats face an uphill climb in these solidly red districts, which have not elected Democratic representatives in more than a decade.

The immediate impact on local schools would be limited by the current availability of private options. District 13 mostly comprises rural counties such as Hill, Falls, Bosque and Limestone, where private schools are few.

Waco has fewer than 10 private schools, but most appear to have limited room to grow.

Curry, who won Gov. Greg Abbott’s support in the primary, said he supports vouchers as a “test” program initially open to a smaller number of students. Curry has said he does not see vouchers and public school funding as an “either-or” issue, and he supports pay raises for teachers and more public education funding.

“The devil is always in the details,” Curry said. “I want to see how the data is being measured and what the expected outcomes are going into it so that you can say, ‘OK, we’re going to spend this money and do this test,’ and then be able to know at the end whether it worked or not.”

His Democratic rival in November is Erin Shank, a Waco lawyer and former teacher who lost in 2022 to longtime incumbent Charles “Doc” Anderson, a supporter of vouchers.

Shank said vouchers are a “scam” meant to defund public schools. She questioned the motives of billionaire Abbott donors such as Tim Dunn and Jeff Yass.

“Our public schools are a billion-dollar industry right now,” Shank said. “They’re controlled by the government. But if you privatize them, then guys like Yass can make a bunch of money, because you take the public schools and you privatize them like they tried to do with the prisons.”

Shank said the voucher proposals that Abbott pushed for in the 2023 legislative session, known as House Bill 1, would not truly allow students of all backgrounds to attend private schools.

“A $10,000 voucher is not going to help a kid from East Waco get into Vanguard,” Shank said, referring to HB 1. “First, the tuition is more than that. It doesn’t pay for transportation. It doesn’t pay for the extracurricular activities like they would get in public schools.”

Vanguard College Preparatory’s yearly tuition is $16,800 for high school students and $11,600 for sixth-graders, according to the school’s website.

In District 13, which covers a portion of McLennan County, Democrat challenger and former teacher Albert Hunter said he got into the race entirely to oppose vouchers after Orr voted in favor of them.

Hunter, now a school board member in Meridian, said losing students because of vouchers would especially harm rural school districts, given their smaller enrollments and tax bases.

Orr, a former Itasca Independent School District trustee, told the Tribune-Herald before the 2022 election that she would break with Republicans on the voucher issue.

After repeatedly voting against voucher proposals, she flipped and voted against removing them from HB 1 in the November special session.

Orr told the Tribune-Herald in December that her flip was due to the funding increase the bill offered public schools. She said the bill would have brought over $40 million of funding to the schools in her district, and said she knew removing vouchers would likely kill the bill. She also said she was in favor of the $1,000 per student vouchers provided for homeschooling, which she said would have benefited students in her rural district.

After a voucher bill failed to pass in last year’s regular session, Gov. Abbott called four special sessions on vouchers. Bipartisan opposition, including from rural Republicans, killed the effort each time.

Voucher bills would have established tax-funded education savings accounts families could use for private school tuition. Proponents said the accounts would give parents better choices for their children’s education and make private school more affordable for lower-income families. Opponents said the legislation would take money away from public schools, which rely on student attendance for funding.

House Bill 1 would have provided $10,500 per student to a total of 40,000 students across Texas. A similar bill in the Senate included provisions that 90% of available vouchers would be restricted to low-income students or students with disabilities, a provision that Abbott opposed.

The bill also included more money for public schools, increasing the per-student allotment from $6,160 to $6,700, which would also automatically be adjusted for inflation starting in the 2026-27 school year. The bill also offered teacher raises, but that measure failed after an amendment passed to strip vouchers from the bill.

Abbott responded by endorsing primary challengers against anti-voucher incumbents. About a dozen of those challenges prevailed, while others are awaiting run-offs in May.

Pat Flavin, a Baylor University political science professor, said many of these primary races are in solidly red districts, meaning they all but determine the general election.

Chris DeCluitt, newly elected McLennan County Republican Party chair, said other issues, such as the border crisis or property taxes, may weigh on voters’ minds more than vouchers. DeCluitt said he has some concerns over vouchers, as one of his kids is in public school and the other is in private school.

Flavin said he thinks the voucher vote next year will be close, but the successful primary push by voucher supporters may sway some anti-vouchers legislators to change their position. Abbott recently said he needs two more votes in the Texas House to pass a voucher bill. Currently, there are eight primary races awaiting a runoff.

“I think it will be very close,” Flavin said. “It was already close-ish in this past session. But this sort of coalition of rural Republicans and Democrats worked to thwart it both in the regular session and at a special session. That group is now smaller because of primary losses. I don’t think if you took a vote today, there’s necessarily a majority, but it’s going to give you continued political pressure.”

Flavin said Abbott’s successful ousters is a testament to his political clout in Texas.

Vouchers make a bigger difference in making private school affordable in Waco, compared to larger communities. In cities such as Houston and Dallas private school tuition can reach $30,000 per year, while Waco schools tend to cost far less.

Valor Preparatory Academy’s yearly tuition is $6,500 to $7,000 per year for students in prekindergarten through eighth grade, while high school tuition tops out at a little more than $10,000 per year. Wes Kanawyer, Valor’s head of school, said Valor’s low tuition has helped it grow quickly, even without vouchers.

“We really want to make Valor accessible to as many people as the Lord would give us,” Kanawyer said. “So we are not trying to be the fanciest, or most expensive. We have a mission and vision and we keep that at the forefront of what we do and try not to get caught up on the peripheral things.”

Valor, which began a decade ago, has an enrollment of 391 and is expected to grow to 470 next year. At that point the school at 4600 Sanger Ave. will be at capacity, Kanawyer said, and could not accept more students, regardless of the voucher bill.

Bishop Louis Reicher Catholic School has an enrollment just under 300, with room for about 500 students in total, said Michael Pennell, head of school.

Pennell said about half of Bishop Reicher’s students are on some kind of tuition assistance, which most other Waco-area private schools offer. Bishop Reicher charges about $8,600 for elementary tuition and up to $13,600 for high school.

Pennell said many in Catholic education support currently proposed voucher bills because at their core, the bills would enable families to choose the best educational options for their children. He said parents who already have children in private schools still pay taxes for public education but do not directly benefit from that tax revenue.

“The way we look at it, is that if a law or an idea, like a voucher program, could have some of those tax dollars that we’ve already put forth for education come back to those families, so that they could make choices in education, that’s just a good law,” Pennell said.

Top officials at Waco and Midway ISDs have spoken against vouchers, saying they would drain tax revenue from public schools.

Midway Superintendent Chris Allen said in a recent interview that he cannot see a voucher scenario that would not harm public education. He said of the $4 billion the state has earmarked for new public education spending, none of it has been spent because the legislation failed.

Allen said the basic allotment of $6,160 per student has not increased since the 2018-19 school year, meaning the district’s funding has not kept pace with the rate of inflation. Rising food prices have increased Midway ISDs costs to feed children, while gas price increases have made school buses more costly to run.

Those inflationary increases have limited the district’s ability to give raises, he said.

“The single biggest issue is that we’re not able to increase compensation for employees at a way that’s keeping pace with inflation,” Allen said. “So while gas has gone up to $3 a gallon, teacher raises have not. While eggs, bread, milk, insurance has gone up, the funding has not matched that. So it’s killing us on teacher compensation.”

Allen said Midway ISD is spending about $2 million more per year compared to three years ago.

Allen said a voucher bill would not cause an exodus from Midway, but even a 1% loss of its current student base is worth more than $1 million.