{"id":1056,"date":"2025-04-20T11:06:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-20T16:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ashleybeanthornton.com\/?p=1056"},"modified":"2025-12-04T10:36:49","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T16:36:49","slug":"what-is-pat-curry-saying-about-the-education-bills-part-1-vouchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ashleybeanthornton.com\/es\/what-is-pat-curry-saying-about-the-education-bills-part-1-vouchers\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Pat Curry saying about the education bills? Part 1: Vouchers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WHAT IS PAT CURRY SAVING ABOUT THE EDUCATION BILLS? PART 1: VOUCHERS<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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This post originally appeared on\u00a0Dead Dillo<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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(This is the first in a series of posts I plan to write about what my Texas House Representative, Pat Curry \u2013 District 56, is saying about the education bills that are being considered by the Texas Legislature. \u2013 ABT)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Pat Curry (TX House District 56) was recently interviewed by Duke Machado of the Hispanic Republicans of McLennan County.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the link:\u00a0https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share\/v\/16aZdvSs9v\/<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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In it, Machado opens with a question about public education,<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\u201cLet\u2019s start with this education package that just passed. How do you unfold that to people who, for some reason, are not happy with the passage of that?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Curry replies,<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\u201cI think so many people are concentrating just on school choice. The fact of the matter is that there\u2019s an entire package of bills that are really, really good for public schools. \u00a0School choice is a test. It\u2019s 100,000 students, out of 6 million in the whole state, most of whom are going to be special ed\u2026none of whom are going to be the wealthy, the way that it\u2019s laid out.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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I agree with Curry<\/strong> that there are some potentially good things in HB 2, the school funding bill that passed the Texas House last week.\u00a0 Some of the other bills in the \u201cpackage\u201d he mentions might also turn out OK, some, to me, are pretty questionable.\u00a0 I will go into those in later posts.<\/p>

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I agree with Curry<\/strong> that we should not concentrate on \u201cjust\u201d on what he calls \u201cschool choice.\u201d (I would call it \u201cschool vouchers.\u201d)<\/p>

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At the same time though…<\/strong> we ARE planning to spend a BILLION dollars of our money on this voucher program, so I do think it is worth a minute to examine our representative\u2019s thoughts about it.<\/p>

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First, I\u2019m not sure what Mr. Curry means by \u201cschool choice is a test.\u201d\u00a0 Does he mean we are just testing it out to see if it works?\u00a0 If so, there\u2019s nothing in the bill that specifies how we would know if it is working or not.\u00a0 The bill does not spell out what we expect school vouchers to do for us.<\/p>

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Toward the end of the discussion about public ed issues in the interview Mr. Curry says, \u201cI\u2019m proud of school choice. I think it will make our schools better, and I think that we will drive our scores up.\u201d\u00a0 So, let\u2019s say, based on that statement, that test scores are the way he believes we are going to measure if the voucher program is working or not.<\/p>

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Private school voucher students are not going to be required to take the same test as public school students, so we will not be able to tell if it is working by simply comparing \u201capples to apples\u201d test scores between the two.<\/p>

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Research on the academic benefits of voucher & voucher-like programs in other states is mixed.\u00a0 Some studies, notably from Florida, show a slight gain for public schools who face competition from private schools fueled by vouchers.\u00a0 Other states, notably Louisiana and Indiana, show losses in math and not much difference in reading following implementation of voucher and voucher-like programs.\u00a0 So, perhaps Curry\u2019s confidence is justified, perhaps not.<\/p>

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Regardless, however, of what measure he might be thinking we will use to see whether this voucher program \u201cworks,\u201d I don\u2019t see anything in the bill that indicates in any way that we are going to stop using vouchers if they don\u2019t work. \u00a0There is not a sunset clause of any kind to suggest that we are even going to take a look at how things are going in a few years and see if we are getting whatever it is we think we are paying for\u2026<\/p>

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Curry also says that probably most of the students who will be served by the vouchers will be Special Ed students. Well.\u00a0 Maybe. But I don\u2019t see any particularly good reason to think so.<\/p>

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It is true that if more students apply for the vouchers than we can accommodate with the billion dollars we have set aside, that there will be a lottery.\u00a0 And, in the case of a lottery, it is true that the first priority to receive voucher money will be \u201cChildren with disabilities from families earning at or below 500% of the federal poverty level (FPL).\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>

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However, that does not necessarily mean that most of the recipients will be special ed students \u2013 at least it doesn\u2019t look that way if you use McLennan County for an example.\u00a0 For special ed students to take advantage of school vouchers there would need to be a private school available that serves special ed students.<\/p>

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There may be some private schools in McLennan County that serve special ed students, but if there are, it is not at all obvious from doing a web search.\u00a0 The Texas Private School Association website does not list any McLennan County schools in their\u00a0list of schools that serve students with special needs<\/a>.\u00a0 If you go to the\u00a0Wacoprivateschools.com<\/a>\u00a0website and click on the \u201cspecial needs schools<\/a>\u201d category, you get no listings.\u00a0 If you google, \u201cWhat private schools in McLennan County serve special ed students?\u201d- you don\u2019t get any specific listings.\u00a0 If you use ChatGPT you find that Reicher \u201cProvides accommodations for learning differences, including small class sizes and individualized support,\u201d and Waco Montessori School \u201cUtilizes the Montessori method, which can be beneficial for neurodivergent students,\u201d and not much else.<\/p>

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That\u2019s not an exhaustive search of course. I did not call every private school in the county to find out how they serve special needs students. I would be glad for someone who knows more about special ed than I do to send me a list of the private schools in McLennan County that serve special ed kids.\u00a0 I would love to be able to share that list far and wide with parents of special ed students who are interested in taking advantage of the voucher program. Not having such a list at this point, I have to wonder if there will be very many private schools that serve special ed students available to Mr. Curry\u2019s constituents in McLennan County. Maybe there are. Maybe there are not.<\/p>

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Even if the parents of a special ed student can find a private school close enough to make attendance feasible, there could still be other barriers such as additional tuition, fees and expenses beyond what the voucher covers. \u00a0That\u2019s probably why special needs students make up only a small percentage of the students who use vouchers in other states that offer similar \u201cschool choice\u201d programs.<\/p>

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Taking all that into consideration, I don\u2019t really see any reason to think that \u201cmost\u201d of the students who use the Texas voucher program, especially in McLennan County, will be special ed students. Of course that remains to be seen.<\/p>

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Curry also says that none of the students who use the program will be wealthy. \u00a0That\u2019s only true if by \u201cnone\u201d he really means \u201cup to 20%.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0It is true that the total number of students whose household income exceeds 500% of the federal poverty guideline who can receive a voucher is capped at 20%.\u00a0 But 20% of a billion dollars is still 200 million dollars.\u00a0 That is more than the whole annual budget for Waco ISD.\u00a0 Thank goodness our legislators capped the percentage that could go to families making 500% of the federal poverty guideline and up! But still, 20% is not nothing.<\/p>

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Mr. Curry says he is proud of school choice \u2013 only time will tell if that pride is justified.<\/strong>\u00a0 I have my doubts, but I\u2019ll admit I\u2019ve been wrong before. Vouchers are coming, so we will get our chance to see how they work.<\/p>

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As of now, the appropriation to pay for vouchers will have to be renewed each session. Since there is no sunset provision, it will be up to us, the voters, to elect representatives who will ask every session if these vouchers are really the best use of our money, and to make sure that the money set aside for vouchers does not drain needed funds from the public schools that serve the vast majority of our Texas School Children.<\/p>

Note:<\/strong>\u00a0This blog post was updated on 4.21.25.\u00a0 It previously stated that the 20% cap on applicants from families making more than 500% of the federal poverty guidelines expired at the end of the 2026-2027 school year.\u00a0 That was amended during House floor discussion so that the 20% cap does not expire.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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WHAT IS PAT CURRY SAVING ABOUT THE EDUCATION BILLS? PART 1: VOUCHERS This post originally appeared on\u00a0Dead Dillo. (This is the first in a series of posts I plan to write about what my Texas House Representative, Pat Curry \u2013 District 56, is saying about the education bills that are being considered by the Texas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-1056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-public-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashleybeanthornton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashleybeanthornton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashleybeanthornton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashleybeanthornton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashleybeanthornton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1056"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/ashleybeanthornton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2570,"href":"https:\/\/ashleybeanthornton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions\/2570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashleybeanthornton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashleybeanthornton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashleybeanthornton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}