Texas families will receive $8,000 in taxes to send students to private school as part of a massive “parental rights” bill backed by the lieutenant governor.

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A sweeping education bill introduced in the Texas Senate late Friday night would allow families to use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools, create new opportunities for parents to view educational materials, and introduce new rules for teaching gender and sexuality in all classrooms. .

If passed, Senate Bill 8 would provide families with up to $8,000 of taxpayer money per student to pay for private tuition through an education savings account, anchoring Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s signed education proposal into law.

Patrick’s efforts have met with resistance before. Rural Republican legislators have historically opposed similar legislation, arguing that it siphons money from public schools, often the anchor of their small communities. But this year’s bill singles out smaller districts, leaving school districts with fewer than 20,000 students fully funded for the first two years. Texas schools receive a base amount of $6,160 per student annually.

Larger areas in urban areas with more private schools may lose public funding, which is calculated based on average student attendance per day.

[What you need to know about education savings accounts, the voucher-like program championed by Gov. Greg Abbott]

Savings account provisions are part of a broader theme of parental rights legislation that Republicans have taken advantage of since school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the three years since then, the Conservatives have made many changes to the way classrooms work. Texas has already placed restrictions on the teaching of topics such as race and slavery.

The legislation puts the lessons of gender identity and sexual orientation under a new microscope. This echoes a highly controversial law in Florida. The wording of the bill, released late Friday night, says schools are prohibited from teaching lessons in any classroom that are not “age or developmentally appropriate.” Schools should create what are known as parent portals so that families can view learning materials. Parents will also have the right to exempt students from education on issues of gender and sexual orientation.

And schools can set lesson reviews based on state rules to make sure teachers are following the law.

School choice advocates have commonly cited the teaching of sexuality and gender as a key justification for taking their children – and taxes – out of public schools. The new bill will allow them to do so and will also ban such drills.

Parents should also be notified of any changes in their child’s mental, emotional or physical health.

An accompanying piece of legislation, Senate Bill 9, also provides for “widespread” salary increases for teachers; increase funding for classrooms; create and fund internship programs for mentors and teachers; and provide free preschool education to children of classroom teachers in districts where it is provided, according to a press release from the bill’s sponsor.

In a statement, the sponsor of the bills, state senator Brandon Creighton, Republican of Conroe, framed the legislation as a compromise between “parents, educators, employers and students.”

[Texas Republicans have filed dozens of bills affecting LGBTQ people. Here’s what they’d do.]

“Educating the next generation of Texans is our highest responsibility, and I drafted Senate Bill 8 to put parents, not the government, at the center of decisions made for their children,” he said. “Giving parents the power to determine the best school for their child will spur competition and innovation while ensuring every Texas student has the opportunity to succeed.”

Friday Creighton also requested an accelerated decision by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on whether his bill, in particular the education savings account provision, would be contrary to the Texas Constitution by diverting public funds to private religious schools. Referring to recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Creighton questioned whether the relevant Texas constitutional provisions, known as the Blaine Amendments, were “also unconstitutional.” And earlier this week, state senator Angela Paxton, who is married to the attorney general, filed a law repealing “a constitutional provision that prohibits appropriation of public money or property for the benefit of any sect, religious society, or theological society.” or a religious seminary.

Catholic leaders said Friday that Creighton’s bill raises important questions about religious freedom, especially with Blaine’s amendments, which they say are rooted in anti-Catholic bigotry.

“Overall, this is a good bill and a good start,” said Jennifer Olmon, executive director of the Texas Catholic Bishops Conference. “It’s a good way to start a conversation.”

Meanwhile, public education leaders denounced the bill: “School vouchers, whatever they are called, divert scarce public education funds to private schools and providers who are not required to comply with federal student protections for students with disabilities or to report and track student spending and progress. said Michelle Smith, chief executive of Raise Your Hand Texas.

Both Patrick, who presides over the State Senate, and Governor Greg Abbott have made “school choice” a priority this session, with the latter calling it an emergency topic for this legislative session and urging lawmakers to enact education savings accounts, a voucher similar to the program that gave For parents withdrawing their children from the public education system, public money to pay for educational expenses such as private school tuition, online tuition, or private tutoring services.

Abbott has spoken at several private schools in the state advocating for the creation of education savings accounts.

“This will give all parents the opportunity to choose the best education option for their child,” he said during a parenting event in Corpus Christi last month, where he announced his support for such a program. “The bottom line is this: it’s really about freedom.”

While Patrick and Abbott support taxpayer-funded private school scholarships, some aspects of the future bill are unreliable. House Democrats and their rural Republican counterparts have historically blocked legislation that siphoned any money out of rural schools. It is unclear whether the additional funding for rural schools in the bill will be enough to garner support from the lower house this year. Under the bill, a school district with fewer than 20,000 students will receive $10,000 a year for the first two years for each student using an education savings account.

Pooja Salhotra and Brian Lopez contributed.


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