Conservatives can be found on several sides of the school voucher debate, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s dream of a school voucher program is caught between them.
In states where pro-voucher lawmakers have held sway, the movement to install taxpayer-funded school vouchers has, so far, been marked by a hands off approach, with state laws that specifically forbid any sort of government oversight and offer private schools a combination of state funds and the freedom to spend them as they wish.
But conservatives are also fans of accountability and transparency. The parental rights movement has focused on accountability for public schools based on heightened transparency, right down to making daily lesson plans public, as in the Parents Bill of Rights passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2023.
That desire for accountability has sometimes put Republicans among the opponents of taxpayer-funded school vouchers. South Dakota Republicans just killed two bills intended to create expanded school voucher systems. State Rep. Mellissa Heermann said one bill would use taxpayer money to fund alternatives to public schools with little accountability or oversight, as reported by Morgan Matzen at the Sious Falls Argus Leader.
Gentner Drummond is the GOP Attorney General of Oklahoma who has staunchly opposed the attempts to operate a Catholic charter school without state interference. In Florida, strongly pro-voucher Education Commissioner Manny Diaz has argued that the state’s NAEP scores have suffered because private school students aren’t counted in the state’s results, and those students should be included in National Assessment of Educational Progress numbers. That’s arguably a call for private school accountability to benefit the state.
Republican Texas Representative Hugh Shine was still in office in 2023 when he told KCEN, “The last thing we need to do is to dismantle a public education system by taking funding away without any real clear accountability in that process.” Shine was one of the Texas representatives targeted by Abbott for primary defeat, and he’s been replaced by pro-voucher representative Hillary Hickland.
Rural Texans have been blocking voucher dreams in Texas for years. Though Abbott– backed by several deep-pocketed voucher fans from across the country according to OpenSecrets data–has replaced some of the GOP representatives that opposed vouchers, the opposition still exists in the grassroots. 2024 elections showed that even voters who support Donald Trump for president may resoundingly reject school vouchers, ProPublica notes.
Dallas school board member Dan Micciche told a meeting that the district needs to “send a message” that schools accepting taxpayer-funded school vouchers “should be held to the same accountability standards for student outcomes, fiscal performance, open records & meetings act, and student services” as public schools, reports KERA news.
SB 2, the most recent version of Texas’s recurring voucher bill, offers more accountability measures than many voucher laws in other states, but that has drawn the ire of some conservatives.
Some social media conversations on the platform X rage branding “so -called ‘school choice’” as an attempt by the state to extend its grasp into private schools and homeschool. Abbott’s vouchers would grow government and shuffle money to “unelected bureaucrats and crony companies,” complain critics like Brian Roberts of the Grayson County Conservatives. SB 2 includes testing and data reporting requirements that many conservatives and home schoolers see as an extension of the hand of government.
Parent activist Tracy Hanes of the conservative Families Engaged for Effective Education posted a full-throated reply to Abbott’s call for vouchers:
“Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) and vouchers are a Trojan horse for government control. By offering taxpayer-funded subsidies to private schools, virtual learning, and homeschool families, the government will ultimately dictate the terms of education in every sector. Once public funding enters, so do regulations, mandates, and oversight—eroding the very freedoms that make private and home education viable alternatives.
“This isn’t “choice”—it’s a complete government takeover, turning students, teachers, and their data into commodities in a system that prioritizes profit and control over genuine learning and local autonomy. Public schools are already captive markets, and universal school choice would pull private and home educators into the same bureaucratic web, ensuring no child is truly free from government influence.”
Though coverage tends to focus on left-tilted opposition to vouchers, this sort of conservative opposition is not new. In 2003, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) spoke out against the idea of federal vouchers. He argued that “vouchers are a creation of the government, not the market. Vouchers are a taxpayer-funded program benefiting a particular group of children selected by politicians and bureaucrats. Therefore, the Federal voucher program supported by many conservatives is little more than another tax-funded welfare program establishing an entitlement to a private school education,” according to Grayson County Conservatives.
Abbott, speaking to audiences in support of SB 2, has emphasized the money on the table. “We’re going to provide more funding and when this session ends we will provide more funding than ever in the history of our state for our public schools,” Abbott said, according to Xochilt Garcia at San Antonio Report.
After multiple attempts to get taxpayer-funded school vouchers across the Texas finish line, Abbott may finally get his wish this year, but only if SB 2 can navigate opposition from many sides.
