Following several hours of what the Houston Chronicle called “raucous debate,” House speaker Tom Craddick sustained a parliamentary challenge that killed the measure for this session. At that point, the House had already approved a measure to water down the program, converting it to a public school choice program.
In commenting on the success of a statewide campaign to defeat vouchers, Carolyn Boyle, coordinator of the Coalition for Public Schools, said, “We proved that telephone calls to the capital can make a great big difference.”
The coalition, an umbrella group of 39 education, child advocacy, religious, and civil rights organizations, including the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB), has worked for years to defeat vouchers in Texas. Voucher proposals were rejected in the Texas legislature in 1995, 1997, and 1999.
TASB is “elated” at the defeat of vouchers, says Legislative Counsel Marty De Leon. “TASB is very concerned about public school funding. Funding is a priority, and we should not be embarking on an experimental voucher program.”
As originally proposed by Rep. Kent Grusendorf (R-Arlington), chair of the House Public Education Committee, the measure would have created a pilot program allowing at-risk students in the state’s largest school districts to transfer to private schools or other public schools at public expense. The vouchers would have been worth 90 percent of the statewide average of per-pupil funding.
Eligible students would have included those who failed any portion of the state assessment in grades 3-12, students at risk of dropping out or of being victims of school violence, students in special education or limited English proficiency programs, or from lower-income households.
The debate on the voucher measure was “chaotic,” Boyle says. “It was the wildest debate I’ve seen in years.”
Rep. Scott Hochberg (D-Houston), one of several members who proposed removing the voucher program from the bill, said it “would drain millions of dollars from public school budgets at a time we can’t seem to come up with money for textbooks we’ve already promised to the kids.”
That amendment was tabled on a close vote, and another amendment to eliminate the voucher proposal failed on a tie vote, with Craddick, who rarely votes, casting the deciding vote.
Rep. Charlie Geren (R-Fort Worth) then proposed an amendment to take Dallas and Fort Worth out of the voucher bill and instead substitute the smaller towns of Irving and Arlington, which are represented in the House by legislators who sponsored the voucher measure.
A motion to table that proposal failed, so the sponsors agreed to the amendment.
The House passed another amendment, also proposed by Geren, to remove private schools from the voucher program and replace them with public schools. That would, in effect, turn it into a public school choice program.
Craddick then ruled on several technical errors filed earlier, thus killing the entire bill that included that voucher program.
While pleased with the outcome, Boyle says she is dismayed by the process. “I had hoped to see a thorough debate by grown-ups -- without the backroom pressure. If not for the arm-twisting and power brokering, we could have had the votes to settle this a lot sooner.”
The Houston Chronicle reports that Craddick and James Leininger, a businessman who used part of his private fortune to create a voucher program in San Antonio, were putting intense pressure on undecided lawmakers to vote for the voucher amendment.