The Texas State Teachers Association said the latest, so-called school “choice” proposal has nothing to do with parental choice but instead is another attack on public education. It would further shortchange Texas public schools and the vast majority of children who will continue to be educated in them.

“If Dan Patrick and his followers wanted to give all students and their parents a meaningful educational choice, they would more adequately fund public education, so that children of all economic backgrounds would have a full menu of academic offerings and electives in their neighborhood public schools,” said TSTA President Noel Candelaria.

“Instead Patrick and his allies have proposed a budget that continues to under-fund public schools and overtax local homeowners. Now, they are proposing vouchers, education savings accounts, tax credit scholarships — or whatever you want to call them — to use our tax dollars with little or no public accountability to subsidize private school tuition for a relative handful of selected families.”

“This is an attack on public education that will harm the vast majority of Texas school children in order to benefit a few private and religious schools, and it may allow a few homeschoolers to purchase new family computers at taxpayer expense,” Candelaria added.

“If Dan Patrick really cared about school kids, he would invest more money in public education, not privatization. Texas now spends $2,690 less per child on public education than the national average, and many school districts are still suffering from $5.4 billion in school budget cuts for which Patrick voted in 2011.”