1. Texas Senate education leaders mull school voucher plan

Gov. Greg Abbott stopped just short of advocating true, transformative public school reform in his State of the State speech on Tuesday. Although he said many true and important things about education, his failure to call for a school choice system that includes a voucher system will ensure that any reform accomplished this session will be mostly cosmetic.

“Parental involvement is critical to student advancement,” Abbott said. “The ultimate parental involvement is giving parents more choices in their child’s education. No one said it better than Keisha Riley from Houston. She tearfully pleaded for the opportunity to send her young daughter to a better school. Keisha said: ‘Having a school in my area that doesn’t fit my needs is frustrating. It makes me feel helpless because I want her to be in a good school and I want her to get a good education so she doesn’t have to struggle like I have.’ … Are we working for her and her daughter? Or are we working for the status quo? The truth is when parents have more options, students win.”

That’s absolutely true. And as a recent report from economist Dr. Art Laffer shows, the economy wins with real school choice — which includes a system to allow poor children the same opportunity their middle- and upper-class peers have: the chance to opt out of failing schools by enrolling in charter, private or parochial schools.

But Abbott stopped short of endorsing such a system. Instead, he cited Grand Prairie ISD as a model. GPISD is an “open enrollment” district, meaning parents can enroll their children in any school in the district they choose.

The problem with in-district school choice is that it’s not really much of a choice in many school districts. The state of Texas has 1,247 public school districts. Many of those districts have a single middle school or junior high, and even more of those districts have a single high school.

And in-district open enrollment defeats one of the most positive effects of school choice — competition. History shows that wherever true school choice is introduced, public schools improve.

A better plan is offered by state Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, who filed a bill in January.

Her bill would establish Taxpayer Savings Grants that parents could use to send their children to the school of their choice. Under the bill, a portion of what the public school district would have spent educating a child would instead follow that child to the school the parent chooses including private and parochial schools. That portion would be 60 percent of the district’s maintenance and operations budget for that child. The remaining 40 percent would go back to the state.

“All of the other funds would stay with the school,” Sen. Campbell said.

“Parental involvement is critical to student advancement,” Abbott said in his speech. “The ultimate parental involvement is giving parents more choices in their child’s education.”

He’s absolutely right. That’s why he should support a school choice bill that will allow parents to truly choose their children’s schools.