From phone bans to club bans, being in public school has never felt more restrictive than it does right now. Along with the internal school changes, regarding the phone ban or room signage, the Texas government has also made changes to the external parts as well. One of the biggest new laws is Texas Senate Bill 2, which is taking money from public schools.
This law states that certain families, supposedly low-income, can obtain vouchers that use public school funds as private school funds, allowing financially challenged families the opportunity to give their kids the education they choose, according to the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities texas.gov. Parents deserve that right, no matter what their financial situation is.
It is common trope in movies for schools to remove funding for the arts due to budget cuts. With the introduction of this bill, budget cuts are not just some movie cliche — this is a real-life issue. Schools in Texas are running out of teachers and money to support all of their students. 80% of Texas public school districts struggle with budget deficits, according to Raise Your Hand Texas Raise Your Hand Texas. There are many reasons to blame for these predicaments, such as inflation and an increase in the need for electricity and power. However, the fact that some of that depleting money is being used for private schools that have their own funding is absurd.
Movies often depict budget cuts in schools as going for the fine arts first, this however is not the case. The schools are not moving money over to fund the football team again — they are just losing money and taking it from the arts first. Sports are not in the clear here — the budget cuts will come for them eventually.
Public school is designed for everyone. Allen High School perfectly exhibits this with almost 2000 students per grade and over 100 clubs, giving so many kids opportunities to participate in their passions. Schools are unable to do that if they have no money. Small, niche programs will start to go away to allow the bigger programs to continue to exist.
The entire point of private schools is to give students a different education than what the state directly provides. Private schools are more than capable of offering their own scholarships
to their students that they choose. There is no reason for the Texas government to be funding them as well.
Furthermore, the vouchers do not even cover the full tuition for the families who need it the most, according to Raise Your Hand Texas. Furthermore, looking at other states that have implemented the voucher system, such as Arizona, Florida and Oklahoma, the policy has largely supported the families who can already afford private schools with more funding. Taking money from taxpayers just to give it to wealthy families is not how Texas should be “helping” public schools. While this law will not take effect until the 2026-27 school year, that only means there is time to prevent it. Texas schools cannot just sit here and wait for public schools to be completely unfunded. People often have strength in numbers. Encourage others to be aware of what is happening and to research the new bill to understand it. While the bill could demonstrate good intent in supporting educational choice, that does not mean it cannot have harmful consequences.
