You value public education and are a Republican? Don’t vote for Helen Kerwin for Texas House District 58! I don’t vote for Republicans (they are the opposite of a freedom party and definitely NOT pro-life) but was told recently that Helen Kerwin of Glen Rose is running for Texas House District 58. I know that Dewayne Burns of Cleburne, incumbent, is her opponent. The one thing I agree with Burns about is that he is pro-public education and against vouchers. He is one of 12 Republicans in the Texas Lege that stripped school vouchers from the education bill. The voucher system would have allowed parents to use tax dollars to send children to private schools and effectively weakened the public education system. Personally, I think if a parent wants to send his or her child to a private school, they ought to save up for it out of their own money and not expect the public to pay for it.
But Greg *Serial Killer* Abbott was mad about the fact that it didn’t pass. He decided to get revenge on these public education proponents by spending against them for opponents.
The Abbott campaign announced the Republican governor raised $19 million in the final half of 2023 and has $38 million in cash on hand, the Texas Tribune reported Wednesday. He brought in $13 million to Texans for Greg Abbott, his main political action committee, and $6 million into another account.
“With the primary elections just around the corner, Governor Abbott has the resources needed to back strong conservative candidates who support his bold agenda to keep Texas the greatest state in the nation, including expanding school choice for all Texas families and students,” Abbott campaign manager Kim Snyder said in a statement, per the Tribune.
We know Abbott was paid a whole bunch of money, $6 million from an out of state donor to get that done, and demmit, if he couldn’t, he decided to politically target those Republicans that oppose school vouchers and endorse people who are happy to carve up public education. That looks like Helen Kerwin, who says on her campaign page
Educational freedom is a pathway to success. Every child in District 58 deserves a tailored education that meets their unique needs and aspirations. I will fight for the right of parents to choose the best pathway for their children, be it public, private, homeschool, or charter.
Helen Kerwin sure looks like she would vote for vouchers, she’s all but shouting it to the world.
And look at the timeline. Greg Abbott endorsed her on January 3, 2024.
The guy from PA, Jeff Yass, that donated $6 million to Abbott (check dated Dec 18, 2023) says “school choice” is to empower parents. Yeah. AND this isn’t the first time he donated a bunch of money to Abbott. He also sent $250,000 in October 2023, right in the middle of Abbott’s push for vouchers, plus another $500,000 to the AFC Victory Fund, a pro-voucher super PAC
So it sure looks to me that Helen Kerwin was chosen specifically to get a revenge vote against Burns, in order to, should she be elected, vote his way.
Are YOU for taking public tax money and giving it away to private schools? I’m not, Texans for Strong Public Schools
Claims that vouchers will give Texas families more choices run counter to what is actually happening in public schools across the Lone Star State, where opportunities abound for students to select schools and programs that best fit their needs and interests.
Among the state’s 1,026 public school districts, families already have the choice to select magnet campuses, public charter schools, public online schools, or a more traditional K-12 option.
Within many school district boundaries, families also have the option of open enrollment — or the ability to select a school other than the one in their attendance zone. Neighboring school districts sometimes allow transfers among students to accommodate specific needs, including academic, health, and family issues.
Vouchers give private schools — not parents — the right to choose
When voucher proponents talk about choice, they are essentially advocating for private schools to choose which students to admit — and at what cost to the families. There’s little doubt that taxpayer-funded vouchers will pick up only a fraction of private school tuition, leaving Texas parents to dig deep into their pockets for the rest.
Those who advocate for vouchers are not advocating for parents’ rights. Texas families will have fewer opportunities to find out what’s happening inside their child’s school because private schools are not required to comply with state accountability and assessment standards, open records laws, special education rules, or curriculum requirements.
And among the conversations happening about education today, it’s important to remember that public schools give parents a way to be part of the discussions and the decision-making through locally elected school boards that are accountable to voters. Vouchers transfer the power of engaged parents to privately owned organizations and corporations, accountable only to their bottom line or inaccessible board of directors.
Of the 5.4 million public schoolchildren in Texas, nearly 950,000 live in rural areas, where options other than their local public schools are few and far between. It’s disingenuous to claim that vouchers will give these families more choice when that means driving dozens of miles every day to a private or religious school. It’s not a realistic option for hard-working Texas families in rural areas of our state.
That’s precisely why Texas’ rural lawmakers have long opposed voucher programs. They know that vouchers would weaken their local public schools, which for generations have rightfully been the pride of their communities. …
In fact, the opportunities available within public schools today are very much the result of engaged parents, who have been advocating for innovative options and programs with their elected school trustees — whether in school board meetings, the grocery store, or via email. Diverting public tax dollars into a voucher scheme that doesn’t follow the rules of open government will certainly diminish the voices of parents in favor of subsidizing corporations and private entities.
Let’s keep public tax dollars where they can benefit the public good. Texas families don’t need vouchers to get the best education for their students — they already have that choice among the 1,026 public school districts in the state.
Don’t be fooled. No matter what an education voucher is called, the policy is the same. Vouchers are a scheme that divert public funds to private schools and vendors, and then continue to undermine traditional public schools and charters, teachers, and students. The lack of public accountability in any voucher program is rife for mismanagement of financial resources, and also lacks academic accountability of the schools that receive the private voucher money.
The last failed voucher bill in Texas was estimated to divert $340 million per year from our public schools. That’s hundreds of millions of dollars that would’ve been unavailable to public schools that could be used to support much-needed salary and retirement increases for teachers and staff, support tutoring and accelerated instruction for our neediest students, or expand pre-kindergarten. While this proposal was initially projected to impact 22,000 students, it was estimated to almost double in size in just a few years, just like in other voucher programs around the country.
For each student leaving a Texas public school, a campus would lose about $10,000 in state and local funding. And when those resources leave the public school district or charter school, the fixed costs of running those schools don’t go away. Class sizes increase, programs are cut, and our public school communities become lesser shells of what they could be if the students remained. In rural Texas communities, just 4 to 5 students leaving for a private virtual school under a voucher program would ultimately cut a teacher’s salary or impact the school’s ability to fund extracurricular activities.
Evidence from other states shows private school vouchers often fail to cover the full cost of a student to attend a private school. Parents may be enticed to utilize a voucher program to send their child to a private school, but then parents discover very few voucher programs cover the full cost of tuition. The national average tuition for private school is more than $12,000.
Pegged as a solution for financially struggling families to get their students into private schools, the real beneficiaries of such programs in other states are students who already attend private schools. In states like Arizona, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin, anywhere from 75% to 89% of the students using vouchers already attended a private school, showcasing that the parents who could already afford private schools are the primary beneficiaries of the programs.
What does the Texas Constitution say about this?
SECTION I. It shall be the duty of the Legislature of this State, to make suitable provisions for the support and maintenance of a system of Public Free Schools, for the gratuitous instruction of all the inhabitants of this State, between the ages of six and eighteen years.
And if you take money away from the public free schools to give to private schools, sure looks unconstitutional to me, plus it is deliberately gutting the ability of public schools to run properly. The question really should be, for Greg Abbott, and by extension Helen Kerwin, why? School vouchers would go from a public, accountable system to one that looks like a giveway to political donors. Shame on them both.
One more note on Burns position from the Texas Tribune
“The removal of the voucher proposal from the bill did not kill the teacher pay raise portion or the section eliminating the STAAR test or any other funding that was appropriately included in the bill or our conservative state budget that we passed this session,” Burns wrote in a Facebook post Thursday. “The bill, and ultimately, those other provisions died because the author killed the bill himself by not allowing it to proceed to a vote once the voucher spending was removed.”
