Education was a huge topic of debate at the Texas Legislature during its last session, in 2023.
Gov. Greg Abbott pushed hard to pass education savings accounts, which critics often call vouchers, that would have allocated public dollars to private schools. Despite calling multiple special sessions, the bill never made it to the finish line.
Wrapped up in the voucher debate were other school issues, including funding teacher pay and testing – all of which is expected to come up again in the next session, which starts in mid-January.
Dax Gonzalez, the government relations division director at the Texas Association of School Boards, spoke to the Texas Standard about what he hopes gets passed in 2025.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity:
Texas Standard: Your organization, of course, represents the elected school boards at public school districts in Texas. What issues are you pushing for or against when it comes to public education this upcoming session?
Dax Gonzalez: We went out over the early part of this year and visited with a lot of our school board members out across the state, and they told us what they wanted. And that’s what ends up on our advocacy agenda.
And so the things that they’re most interested in this session are things like investing in Texas students and empowering local communities. So what that really means is, when we’re talking about investing in students, we’re talking about adequately funding public schools. And that really comes through an increase in the basic allotment.
We’re talking about investing in teacher recruitment and retention. We’re talking about ensuring that teachers have what they need to make it through the day and to provide for their kids. So we’re talking about transparency requirements for schools that receive public tax dollars and really looking at how the accountability system grades schools across the state.
Are there any education bills that have already been filed that you have your eyes on or anything you expect will come up?
Well, vouchers will take a lot of the air out of the room. Really, our focus is going to be on funding. A lot of districts across the state are dealing with deficit budgets right now. They are consolidating schools, closing schools and reducing bus routes. They’re trying to find ways to do more with less.
Right now, they are facing historic inflation, since about 2019, that has not been addressed. And I say 2019 because that’s the last time that schools were given any kind of funding increase through the basic allotment.
And so they are trying to provide the same services that are required by the state with less buying power because of that inflation. [We need to] make sure that we have enough teachers who are receiving a living wage, because [cost is] going up for everyone, including teachers.
Schools have already cut through the fat, and we’re getting to the bone now because when you look at the expenses across district budgets, less and less is administrative cost and they’re putting more into the classroom. The problem is it’s just they don’t have any more to put in there.
» MORE: The ABCs of education policy lingo
Do you have a pie-in-the-sky wish list item that you don’t think will be addressed by lawmakers but you would love to see legislation on?
There are several gaps right now between what schools are spending and what the district is providing. And those are more specialized.
So while the basic allotment is a fair and efficient way to get money across to all districts in the state, you have things like special education funding, you have things like transportation funding and security funding, where there are real tangible numbers behind what schools are spending the state providing.
And we’re talking billions of dollars — for special education, schools are spending about $2 billion more than what the state is providing. For transportation, it’s about $1.5 billion. And for safety and security, it really is hard to pin that number down, but I’ve seen anywhere between $750 million to $1.5 billion, depending on whether you count the armed guards that are now required.
So these are all issues that we hope to get addressed. And really, if you increase the basic allotment, which is the first drop of money that all students get across the state, when you’re talking about school finance, a lot of those other issues are addressed as well.
Anything you see on the horizon that you’re concerned about or oppose?
What I hear from our members is that they’re worried that school funding will be held hostage to a voucher bill again. And they really believe that those issues should be addressed separately – that school funding is a way more important issue right now, especially as we see things like school closures happening across the state.
So they hope that they can address that and then we can get to the other issues like vouchers, like school safety and other things.
» GET MORE NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE: Sign up for Texas Standard’s weekly newsletters
So as lawmakers consider vouchers or ESAs, what are some of the things Texans should keep in mind?
What we’ve heard from our members is that legislators should really be thinking about guardrails around any program that they create that includes transparency for public tax dollars and accountability for the results of students.
As we come into the session, I think what people need to really be focused on is school funding. That is the No. 1 issue. We can’t pay teachers without it. We can’t have bus routes. We can’t do the things that schools are constitutionally mandated to do in the state of Texas.
And so I really would hope that people keep their eye on the prize, which is really adequately funding our public schools.
Are you feeling hopeful about school funding or, again, you think it will be more of the same?
I think as more and more legislators hear from their parents back home of the issues that are happening in their local public schools – we saw a lot of news coverage of long waits to pick up kids because bus routes were canceled; we’ve heard of parents decrying the closing of local public school campuses to consolidate kids and other campuses – I think as legislators hear more and more of those stories, they will start to get a sense of the real urgency behind this issue.
And hopefully we’ll have some meaningful dollars this session for public schools.
