Gov. Greg Abbott voices clear support for school voucher program

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Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday voiced help for a faculty voucher plan, providing his clearest embrace in latest reminiscence of letting mother and father use taxpayers {dollars} to ship their children to personal faculties.

“We will absolutely fund public faculties whereas additionally giving mother and father a selection about which faculty is true for his or her baby,” Abbott mentioned throughout a marketing campaign occasion in San Antonio. “Empowering mother and father means giving them the selection to ship their kids to any public faculty, constitution faculty or non-public faculty with state funding following the coed.”

Abbott has lengthy been a supporter of the broad idea of “faculty selection,” however his give attention to it has ebbed and flowed all through his governorship. His dedication to the trigger was thrown into query by a latest string of endorsements in Texas Home major runoffs the place he backed Republicans opposed by school-choice proponents, together with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

Critics of vouchers say they harm public faculties, an argument that Abbott’s Democratic challenger, Beto O’Rourke, shortly made after the governor’s remarks.

“Abbott is for defunding our public faculties,” O’Rourke tweeted. “I am for absolutely funding our youngsters’ school rooms and absolutely supporting mother and father, lecturers, and college students.”

Abbott sought a number of occasions to assuage issues about public faculty funding. He insisted {that a} voucher plan “doesn’t imply that public faculties won’t be absolutely funded — whether or not they’re city, rural, suburban.”

“When you like the general public faculty your baby is attending, it should nonetheless be absolutely funded,” Abbott mentioned.

College-choice teams cheered Abbott’s announcement that state funding ought to comply with the coed the place they go. Mandy Drogin, the Texas director of the American Federation for Kids, mentioned in an announcement that “due to Greg Abbott’s management, the tutorial freedom motion in Texas has been lit on hearth.”

Vouchers has lengthy been a tricky promote within the Legislature, the place the thought tends to attract bipartisan opposition within the Home, partly from rural Republicans involved concerning the well being of public faculties of their districts. The speaker, Beaumont Republican Dade Phelan, mentioned in a latest radio interview that he has “no downside with an up-or-down vote” on faculty selection points however famous check votes have beforehand failed by huge margins.

“The delta’s fairly giant on faculty selection, on getting it throughout the end line,” Phelan mentioned.

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