Texas moves closer to universal school choice as House committee advances key bill
April 4, 2025
Texas is getting school choice. As AIM Senior Fellow Cory DeAngelis puts it:
Texas House Education Committee just passed a UNIVERSAL SCHOOL CHOICE bill. The vote was 9 to 6. All Republicans voted in favor. All Democrats voted against. It now goes to the floor. It already passed the Senate 19 to 12. It’s happening, Texas.
As ever in politics, it’s not wholly a done deal yet. But as politics also works now that it is not tied up in committee, now that it’s actually going out to the floor for a proper vote, it might well be that done deal.
In more detail, The Senate already passed SB2. That gives school choice. The House, well, they’re not going to just pass some darn bill now, they’ve got to make changes. So, HB3 does make some changes:
The House committee’s proposed revisions to SB 2 largely insert language from the House version of school voucher legislation, House Bill 3.
If there weren’t some changes made then we might all wonder why we bother to pay the House, right? The essential deal remains the same. There will be proper and full school choice in Texas.
It’s taken some time and effort to get here. We’ve been doing out part over the years. Recently we were with Riley Gaines as she advocated school choice. We aided in changing the composition of the House to make if more favourable to school choice. Further back we’ve pointed out, repeatedly, the truth about school choice. The greatest benefits go to those stuck in the worst school systems:
The strongest source of support for school choice in Texas is among Black Democrats. As is common across the nation, it’s minority parents whose children attend inner-city schools, which tend to have fewer resources and score lower in testing.
This is what has always made Democratic oppositions – recall, this committee vote was purely upon party lines – so difficult to understand. Difficult until we recall that support from the teachers’ unions is vital to the Democratic Party and that’s far more important to them than either children or their own voters.
It’s interesting to see what they’re complaining about now:
Transparency complaints stemmed from the fact that the meeting, which was held in the committee’s normal hearing room, was not live streamed. Several Democrats on the committee, including Rep. James Talarico of Austin, said they believed the move was a disservice to the public.
“We’re about to discuss last minute changes that have been made to the two biggest bills of the session — including the private school voucher bill which many of us are worried will defund our schools — and we are not live streaming that discussion for people across the state who can’t be here?” asked Talarico as the meeting began Thursday afternoon.
If that’s the level of their complaints, then they’re reduced to trivia rather than discussing the actual bill.
It’s not a done deal. There’s still the full House vote to go. But it’s looking better than it ever has.