School vouchers have become one of the most hotly debated topics of the Texas 88th Legislative Session ever since Gov. Greg Abbott introduced the topic in his State of the State address in February. Vouchers allow parents to use taxpayer funds to send their children to nonpublic schools like IDEA Public Schools and Austin Achieve, among many others based in central Texas. School vouchers are not unique to Texas, they are used in roughly 30 other states, but what Abbott and the Texas Education Agency or TEA are trying to do is not only harmful for public school districts but also for students and teachers.

A voucher program would divert funding from school districts like Austin ISD to privately funded schools. Already, Texas spends much less than the national average on public school students. In a report by the Texas American Federation of Teachers and Every Texan, Texas spends $3,300 less per student in comparison to other states. This deficit has also been greatly increased due to inflation, which is why the state legislature should also raise per-student funding as well. The legislature should be more focused on funding public school districts that have more students than private institutions that are already heavily funded.

Gov. Abbott is using school vouchers to continue his “anti-woke” agenda by persuading parents to switch to alternative schooling options like charter schools and homeschooling in order to combat teachers talking about slavery and current events.

With the Texas Education Agency at the forefront of passing school vouchers legislation, you would think that all their members would be onboard. But in leaked audio released on a YouTube channel by Lynn Davenport, a conservative commentator, and reported by the Texas Tribune, TEA Deputy Commissioner Steve Lecholop is caught admitting that school vouchers would decrease funding to public school districts, a statement that Gov. Abbott has tried to dispute.

In the audio, Lecholop is speaking with a parent of a child that attends the public school district, Joshua ISD. Lecholop asks the parent to tell her story about her mission to allocate public school funds to private school tuition to a writer working for the governor.

“Your tax money should be allowed to go to your child’s education,” Lecholop said in the leaked audio. “Instead, you’re paying your property taxes, but you’re also paying tuition and so it’s like double dipping.”

Then the conversation shifts and Lecholop admits that when public school districts lose a student, they also lose funding.

“School districts, what they have to do if they lose a student, [is] be smart about how they allocate their resources, and maybe that’s one less fourth-grade teacher,” Lecholop said.

The Texas Education Agency’s role in the state is to support K-12 schools but by instituting school vouchers, the agency is actively hurting their most fundamental and impactful form of schooling, public schools.

Gov. Abbott said that providing school vouchers is a “top priority” for this legislative session, but I could think of many other should-be-top priorities that Abbott has not spoken of as much. For example, gun control after countless recent shootings within our state borders, including the most recent at a popular outlet mall in Allen where eight people were murdered by a white supremecist covered Nazi-related tattoos, or providing health care for every woman in the state or actually funding public school districts directly.

Those “should-be” priorities are actually in line with the thinking of most Texans. According to a poll by the University of Texas/Texas Politics Project published in February that surveyed Texas voters, school vouchers are not even close to the top-of-mind issues for those polled. What actually is at the top of the priority list for voters is school safety along with teacher pay and curriculum content.

This school vouchers system that has been introduced is just a scam to take money from taxpayers and give it to private schools and mainly wealthy parents who don’t need the extra help affording those institutions in the first place.