Gov. Abbott rallies supporters for 'school choice' at Capitol
Gov. Greg Abbott hosted a rally for "parental empowerment" at the Texas Capitol on Tuesday, advocating for his plan to subsidize private education in front of supporters his team bussed to Austin from San Antonio and Cypress.
AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Gov. Greg Abbott hosted a rally for "parental empowerment" at the Texas Capitol on Tuesday, advocating for his plan to subsidize private education in front of supporters his team bussed to Austin from San Antonio and Cypress.
Senate Bill 8 is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday. That legislation, which Abbott dubs the "parental bill of rights," would create education savings accounts the state would fund with $8,000 per eligible family to send their children to private school.
Abbott said Texas would increase funding for public education this session while also lambasting unspecified policies in public schools he claims hurt transparency and teach harmful material.
"Our children are being taught a radical, woke agenda," Abbott told the crowd. "Listen, there's no reason why any student should have a woke agenda pushed on them. Our schools are for education, not indoctrination."
Supporters with children in both private and public schools echoed those concerns after his speech. Their worries stemmed from conservative arguments that schools are "indoctrinating" students with liberal ideologies or "critical race theory," which is an advanced legal framework to examine the role of race in society and is not present in Texas' K-12 curriculum.
The plan for "school choice" or "school vouchers," as opponents dub it, faces near-unanimous opposition from Democrats in the legislature. It also faces ardent opposition from many Republicans, who worry the plan could siphon money from rural school districts that do not have private alternatives.
KXAN is speaking with Bartlett ISD, a rural school district of 380 students an hour north of Austin, about how it foresees an education savings account plan impacting them.
This is an ongoing story and will be updated throughout the day with our latest reporting.