One only has to consider the recent lawsuit, now quietly dismissed, in which local board members of the Great Hearts Texas charter school network accused leaders of the Arizona-based Great Hearts America of illegally siphoning off millions of dollars in illicit fees since 2017. When Great Hearts Texas board members challenged those actions, they asserted in the lawsuit, the national organization unlawfully tried to oust them.
A state district court judge issued an order preventing the coup.
Can anyone imagine such chicanery unfolding in one of the city’s public school districts? There would be parental uprisings, wall-to-wall media coverage and criminal investigations. At Great Hearts, however, the two sides simply announced they had resolved their issues and the lawsuit was dropped.
Where was the pro-charter Texas Education Agency and its leader, Mike Morath, in this dispute? Nowhere to be seen, actually. The TEA might take over public school districts in Houston and San Antonio, but it’s made no visible effort to investigate Great Hearts on behalf of taxpayers.
Welcome to accountability at so called public charter schools in Texas, where the only thing public about the schools is the taxpayer money that funds them. Otherwise, what happens mostly happens behind closed doors. The public and media are met, metaphorically, by a Keep Out sign.
You can read more about the Great Hearts scandal in this article published by the San Antonio Express-News.
That total lack of accountability is instructive now that Gov. Greg Abbott has forced legislators back into an unprecedented fourth special session this year in his continuing efforts to win legislation that will allow the state to give taxpayer money to families who want to enroll their children in religious schools. Abbott’s campaign for the legislation has largely unfolded on the campuses of Christian evangelical schools. Financially troubled Catholic schools have also jumped on the voucher bandwagon.
Abbott’s refusal to accept the continuing legislative rejection of vouchers drew the attention of the Wall Street Street Journal last week. The governor has publicly stated his intention to exact political retribution from House Republicans who continue to oppose his voucher demands. What kind of governance is based on threats against elected representatives who disagree on a policy matter?
To date, a number of House Republicans who represent mostly rural districts, where the public school system is often the largest employer and where there are few if any sectarian schools, have joined with Democrats to stand up to Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in the Senate, which has continued to pass pro-voucher measures. Will resistance in the House weaken in the next 30 days as legislators eye a Thanksgiving spent captive in the state capitol building?
The test will be in a bill introduced by Rep. Brad Buckley (R-Killeen), chairman of the House Public Education Committee, that was voted out of committee by a 10-4 party line vote on Friday, meaning the full House will vote on vouchers for the first time in memory.
“The vote is not and should not be seen as a reflection of the committee’s position on the merits of a voucher scam,” the House’s Democratic Caucus leader, Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (D-San Antonio), wrote in a note to party members.
That remains to be seen. The present bill differs significantly from past voucher bills that have died in the House without coming to a floor vote. A governor desperate for a voucher win has flip-flopped after refusing to consider any new public school funding as part of a voucher bill. The House bill now includes teacher raises, a $500 increase in per capita student funding, and a number of other individual enticements meant to sway Republican members who have previously opposed vouchers.
This bill is all about politics, not improving public education in Texas.
During the regular legislative session as the biennial budget was debated and passed, Abbott showed no interest in using any of the $33 billion surplus to improve public education in Texas because it was the right thing to do. He has only agreed to it now in a fourth special session because it is the only possible path forward for him to realize a political win.
If the bill fails yet again, as voucher legislation has failed for more than 25 years in Texas, it will be interesting to see if Abbott can actually organize credible primary opponents in a dozen or more Republican House districts. If voucher legislation becomes law, it will be seen years from now as one more milestone in the decline of underfunded public schools in Texas, which already rank low for funding and performance among the nation’s 50 states.
The $500 million the bill allocates for vouchers would be far better spent by underfunded public schools still recovering from the COVID pandemic. Again, this vote isn’t about public education. It’s all about politics and a governor desperate for a win.
