For Texans who want a look at the future of school vouchers pushed mightily by Gov. Greg Abbott, the states of Kentucky and North Carolina are providing insights into the Republican Party’s new education agenda.

Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina wrote an opinion piece for USA Today that explained an onslaught of lobbyists, for-profit schools and mega donors who are seeking to cash in on voucher programs.

Both states are reporting successful graduation rates and rising test scores from schools that are the economic backbone of many rural communities.

“That’s why we’re so alarmed that legislators want to loot our public schools to fund their private voucher scheme. These vouchers, instituted in the 1950s and 1960s by Southern governors to thwart mandatory school segregation, are rising again thanks to a coordinated plan by lobbyists, private schools and right-wing legislators,” they wrote.

This is the strategy: Start the programs modestly, offering vouchers only to low-income families or children with disabilities. But then expand the giveaway by taking money from public schools and allow the wealthy who already have children in private schools to pick up a government check.

In North Carolina, the Republican legislature passed a voucher program with no income limit, no accountability and no requirement that children can’t already go to a private school, Cooper said.

“This radical plan will cost the state $4 billion over the next 10 years, money that could be going to fully fund our public schools,” he added.

Both Democratic governors said that public schools are crucial to their state’s economy. In North Carolina, public schools are a top-five employer in all 100 counties. In many rural counties, there are no private schools for children to attend, meaning those taxpayer dollars are torn out of the county and put into the pockets of wealthier people in more populated areas.

Abbott is determined to put Texas into the voucher business. However, a coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans voted down his voucher proposal that would pay out as much as $10,000 per child in last year’s legislative session. Emulating his hero, Donald Trump, Abbott tried extorting the holdouts by not allowing a pay increase for teachers or additional funding for public schools despite sitting on a budget surplus of $33 billion.

Next, Abbott called back the Legislature in repeated special sessions to get that issue approved, but again failed. So now he’s resorting to bare-knuckle tactics to eliminate the 19 Republicans who voted against the bill in the March primary. So far, his hand-picked opponents have succeeded in nine elections with two more facing a run-off May 7.

One of those losing in the primary was Rep. Travis Clardy, who represents several rural counties including Panola County, where I live. Our area was bombarded by hundreds of television ads on Tyler and Shreveport stations plus an avalanche of flyers in your mailbox.

Clardy had a simple question for his constituents — who is paying for those ads for his opponent, whose main qualification is being president of the Nacogdoches County Republican Women. Wealthy donors from out of state are suspected because they are the ones backing for-profit schools that would benefit the most from vouchers.

Abbott probably plowed money into the primary from his large campaign fund accumulated during his many years as governor and attorney general. It’s a sad commentary for Republicans to cannibalize some of their own quality representatives on the altar of the almighty dollar.