Political fights that will determine how schools operate for millions of Texas children — and whether their families can use public money for private education — were foreshadowed Monday during a legislative hearing in Austin.

The House Public Education Committee began discussions on the voucherlike efforts. Education savings accounts are a priority of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who poured millions in cash and political capital to elect conservatives who would back his plan. He appears poised for success ahead of the November election.

Teachers, parents and advocates testified on the school choice idea, which has repeatedly been batted down by a coalition of rural Republicans and Democrats who worry it will siphon money away from the public schools that serve the vast majority of Texas children.

ESAs will degrade public schools across the state by taking away resources, said James Hallamek, the government relations specialist with the Texas State Teachers Association.

“Lawmakers should work to increase appropriations to public schools, not divert taxpayer funds to private schools,” Hallamek said.

The hearing took place on the first day of classes for many Texas schools, making it difficult for many teachers and parents to testify during the marathon day that ran from 9 a.m. until after 7 p.m.

Abbott used the back-to-school season to highlight his demands for parental choice.

He has pushed for education savings accounts, or ESAs, to be universally available. Families could use dedicated state funding to pay for tuition, tutoring, textbooks or other educational needs.

“During the upcoming legislative session, we’re going to work to make school choice a reality,” the governor wrote on X. “Parents matter — and choosing where they send their children to school matters.”

Among the proposals that gained traction – but didn’t pass last year – was one to give families up to $8,000 in an ESA. The policy would have cost about $500 million in its first year and serve as many as 25,000 kids, according to a state analysis. However, the plan’s costs could have ballooned to nearly $1 billion by year three, according to the estimates.

ProPublica recently reported that Arizona’s universal voucher program contributed to financial woes. The state faced a $1.4 billion budget shortfall, much of which was a result of the new voucher spending, according to the Grand Canyon Institute, a local nonpartisan fiscal and economic policy think tank.

Last year, the fight over ESAs in Texas derailed several other education proposals, including bills that would’ve boosted teacher pay and increased the base amount of money public schools receive per-student.

On Monday, lawmakers invited officials, professors and advocates from other states that already operate voucherlike programs. They discussed how their leaders decided how to prioritize slots, designate allowable expenses and institute accountability standards.

Those questions will likely be up for debate in the next session, which begins in January.

“We exist in an ever-changing world where we have the ability to customize nearly everything in our lives. This shift to an ESA-style approach is a harbinger of a more dynamic, responsive and inclusive educational landscape, where the needs and choices of families take center stage,” said Robyn Bagley, director of Utah Education Fits All.

Lawmakers largely reiterated the arguments made last year. Democrats expressed concerns that private schools don’t have to serve all students who have disabilities and that wide swaths of rural Texas don’t have access to private campuses.

Republicans stressed that parents should be financially empowered to put their child in the school that suits them best.

“Parents have the ultimate power when they make a school choice decision,” Republican committee chairman Brad Buckley said. “And they’re the ones that can decide whether or not the school is meeting the needs of their kids.”

Fort Worth parent Ken Kuhl told the committee that many families who use school vouchers are those who already have kids enrolled in private schools. Kuhl serves on the Texas PTA board.

“This voucher/ESA conversation is only about some of our Texas kids, and that’s wrong,” Kuhl said. “Instead of thinking about solutions that will only help some kids, we need to be thinking about solutions that will help all kids, and that’s not any form of voucher or ESA.”

The committe also discussed other education issues during the hearing, including the rollout of proposed lesson plans that include religious information.

State lawmakers asked Texas Education Agency officials to create a state-specific set of instructional materials for reading, which it made public in May. The lessons are designed to be structured, aligned with standards and accessible for all teachers to download for free.

However, Christianity is woven into several of the lessons, such as a kindergarten unit on “The Golden Rule.”

Officials said religious context can give students the ability to more deeply understand literary references and historical events.

“Jesus said that the Golden Rule sums up, or combines, all of the other rules described throughout the Bible into one, ‘So in everything, do unto others as you would have done unto you,’” reads one lesson.

Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, questioned Education Commissioner Mike Morath on the amount of Christian stories infused into the lessons.

Jewish, Muslim or Hindu students shouldn’t feel excluded in classrooms, Talarico said. He worried about how well teachers are trained to deal with complex questions of faith.

“There is a difference between teaching and preaching,” the lawmaker, a former teacher, said. “Public schools are not Sunday schools.”

Rep. Matt Schaefer pushed back, saying families crave such lessons.

“The simple truth is that all world religions did not have an equal impact on why we’re here today,” the Tyler Republican said. “I don’t think we should ever be ashamed of mentioning the name of Jesus in our curriculum, or shying away from the role of Christianity in developing this country.”

The State Board of Education is expected to vote on the lessons in the fall, along with textbooks from several other publishers.

If members give their seal of approval, districts could tap into extra state funding meant to encourage schools to use proven high-quality instructional materials. Local districts would not be required to use the state’s product.

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The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.

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For Kaylee Caudle, 19, the vibes around the election were off.

This Nov. 5 is the first time Caudle will be old enough to cast a ballot in a presidential election. She won’t vote for former President Donald Trump; his rhetoric and conservative policies don’t line up with her values, she said, especially on issues like reproductive rights and the environment. So for a lack of better options she expected to vote for President Joe Biden, even though she thought he was a little too old to run again.

“It was hard to get excited when everyone seemed so depressed about the election,” said Caudle, a sophomore at Rice University. “The vibe wasn’t there.”

Then came the memes.

In July, Caudle’s social media feeds were flooded with clips of Vice President Kamala Harris’ speeches overlaid with synth-pop beats and viral dance sequences. Pop star Charlie XCX declared “kamala is BRAT,” a key endorsement that rang out across her Generation Z fandom. In a nod to a now-viral speech where Harris quoted her mother saying “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree,” coconut emojis rained across TikTok. All of a sudden, the election was fun.

Caudle says Harris’ ascendancy to the top of the Democratic ticket jump-started her excitement to cast her first vote this November — and encourage friends and family to get registered, too.

“The memes are ridiculous, but they’re really catchy and a good way of reminding people that this is a great candidate who isn’t like 80 years old and also has good policies,” Caudle said.

The new matchup between Trump and Harris is helping Democrats close the enthusiasm gap, in part by capturing the attention and interest of young voters who historically vote at lower rates than older generations. But the historic nature of Harris’ candidacy as the party’s first Black woman and South Asian presidential nominee, coupled with the rapid shift in the campaign’s tone, has young voters of all political stripes taking a hard look — some for the first time — at the role they could play in November.

“I feel like with a female president, it’s a whole new perspective. You see it from a different angle,” said Daijha Davis, a sophomore at Texas Southern University. Davis, who will also cast her first ever ballot this November, said she hadn’t paid much attention to Trump or Biden’s records in office and had been a “little torn” on her vote. But the Harris campaign’s revitalized social media presence has won her over and she is now prepared to vote for Harris.

If motivated, Gen Z voters could have a major impact on elections. Texas’ population has the second youngest median age of any state, other than Utah. And in 2020, there were about 1.3 million Texans ages 18 to 24 who were registered to vote. Those voters have historically turned out to vote at rates lower than any other age range, with voter participation rates increasing steadily as age ranges increase.

About 43% of young Texans aged 18-29 voted in 2020 — an eleven point increase from 2016. 66% of all eligible voters and 76% of eligible voters age 64 and older voted that same year.

Jeremi Suri, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, predicted that Harris’ rise would help Democrats “enormously” with young Texans, who are especially concentrated in urban areas and disproportionately non-white. They might not be able to swing a presidential election on their own, he said, but could influence down ballot races.

“Harris can speak to young people’s issues in a way that neither of the other two candidates can,” Suri said, citing gun violence and reproductive rights as top issues. “She’s in the cultural, social, educational world of young people, much more than the two old men.”

The social media presence whirlwind surrounding Harris has engaged young Democrats, said Olivia Julianna, a Houston-based Gen Z influencer.

“So many young people who have kind of been filled with dread or not knowing what was going to happen … now have so much energy and are so excited, not just to vote for Kamala but also volunteer and make videos,” Julianna said.

But Gen Z isn’t monolithically supporting Democrats. Nationally, polling shows that Gen Z men are more conservative than previous generations. The ideology gap between young men and women has widened as reproductive rights have become one of the top issues for women and younger men feel more welcomed in the Republican party. Polls earlier this year have shown Biden losing support among young voters to Trump.

Those young conservatives are likely to be as repelled by Harris’ candidacy as they were with Biden’s, regardless of their age, said Sam Somogye, executive director of the Texas Young Republicans.

Harris’ handling of immigration issues and her stance on gun rights would be particularly alienating to young Texans, Somogye predicted.

“Saying she wants to ban assault rifles and attack the Second Amendment is not going to play well,” said Somogye. “Whoever advised her to come to Texas, of all places and say that clearly shows that her campaign and the Biden administration is grossly out of touch with the American people and especially Texas voters.

Arshia Papari, a sophomore at UT-Austin, said he had been undecided between voting for Biden or a third-party candidate, citing the Biden Administration’s support for Israel amid the Israel-Hamas war despite the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

While Biden has repeatedly called for an end of the war, the U.S. has continued to support Israel through military aid and diplomatic backing. The war has become a flashpoint for many college campuses, with many young progressives leading protests to support a free Palestine and calling on universities to divest from companies tied to Israel and weapons manufacturing.

Despite his frustration at the Biden administration’s response, Papari has come around to supporting Harris. The vice president is not only younger, but seems more open to listening to young voters’ concerns, he said.

Harris said last month that she would “not be silent” about the humanitarian toll of more than 39,000 people killed during the campaign in Gaza.

“I would like her to take further action and decisive action to pull US support for Israel’s atrocities and bring us back to the right side of history,” Papari said of Harris, adding that she seems “more empathetic on the Gaza issue” than Biden or Trump.

Fatima Qasem, a senior at the University of Houston, disagreed. “Based on Kamala’s actions, or inaction, we have not seen evidence of her policy being different from Biden’s.”

Qasem, 19, said that many students who consider the Israel-Hamas war a central issue are unlikely to be swayed by Harris’ candidacy. Only a call for a permanent ceasefire and withholding of all aid from Israel would persuade such voters to support Harris, said Qasem, a member of her campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.

Many SJP chapters are politically neutral and do not advocate on behalf of or against candidates, Qasem said. Still, her chapter has encouraged young people to consider a range of options outside of voting, including supporting third party candidates, or not voting at all.

Sneha Kesevan, 21, is one of those young voters who are undecided between voting for Harris or a third-party candidate.

The pre-med student at UT-Austin, said she too noticed a “vibe shift” upon Biden’s withdrawal but wanted to see more evidence that a Harris administration would actually put an end to the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“What are you going to do to stop it? Instead of just saying, like, we need to end this war,” Kesavan said. “Even if she is saying something and still doesn’t lead to the action, then what does [Harris] believe?”

She would have a better understanding of Harris’ positions, Kesavan said, if there had been any debates or primary process. Before the Democratic Party anointed Harris as the nominee – there were talks between party leaders of the idea of having a mini-primary if Biden decided to drop out.

“I really wanted to see how that pan[ned] out,” Kesavan said. “The idea of a mini party convention sounds more democratic.”

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