AUSTIN (Nexstar) — With more than 20 hours of discussion, the Texas House Committee on Public Education adjourned around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. After hearing more than 300 testimonies on House Bill 3 (HB 3) — establishing an education savings account to subsidize private education for eligible Texans — they left the bill pending in committee.
While most of the people who spoke in public testimony were opposed to the bill, a release from the Texas Freedom Network (TFN) said “734 Texans officially registered their stance on the bill, with 502 registering against the bill, 213 registering in support of the bill, and 19 registering as neutral.” The total number of registered stances certainly grew since TFN released its numbers, since comments closed at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Here’s some highlights from the committee’s long night.
‘A vote for layoffs and economic decline’
State Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, who chairs the Public Education Committee, announced 335 people signed up to testify as of 7 p.m., when public testimony started.
“Your district schools are more than places where kids learn, they’re major employers,” Danielle Bryant, a former teacher who opposes the ESA program said, while addressing the rural school choice supporters on the committee. “A vote for HB 3 is a vote for layoffs and economic decline in your own communities.”
‘It’s not conservative’
Tarrant County GOP Precinct Chair Hollie Plemons testified her opposition to the bill, saying it doesn’t conform with Republican values.
“I’m against this bill is because it’s not conservative. It grows government [and] creates a subsidy,” Plemons said. “I am very well aware of the paid messaging that all [Republicans] want HB 3. But I beg to differ. I bet money that Republican voters would not be for HB 3 if they knew illegals were eligible and closer to the front of the line than they are. That an LGBTQ school that is private — just like they have in Arizona — can be created and be a voucher school. That Muslim schools — we have 25 of them in the state of Texas, 16 of them are already accredited — can immediately become a voucher vendor school. I’m positive that Republicans do not want to fund that.”
Plemons then got emotional talking about the sacrifices she had to make to put her children through private school.
“I sold my car. I drive an almost 20-year-old car. I have the newest car in my family. We don’t go on vacations, we don’t go out to eat, we don’t even go to the movies, because I think it’s more important to have a government-free education for my child,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for the last two years. I just got to get through two years, and then. My baby is going to be able to go to that private school, and now this, this isn’t fair, Chairman Buckley, this isn’t fair what you’re doing at all. This is not responsible.”
‘My quality education didn’t make the budget’
Testimony in favor of HB 3 also got emotional, as Angelina Tamez discussed how she was priced out of private education.
“In my opinion this could be a gamechanger for Hispanic families like my own,” Tamez said. “When I was a sophomore in high school, I walked into my class thinking it was going to be a regular agenda — take notes, listen to the lecture. However this time, my teacher decided to do this assignment where she posted statistics on the walls. It was for us to be forced to encounter the truth of our education system. Two of these statistics said ‘7% of Rio Grande Valley (RGV) students are considered college-ready based on their ACT and SAT scores.’ 7%. And ‘a third of your region’s working-age residents never completed high school.”
While Tamez said the teacher was trying to motivate her class, she said it scared her into looking for alternative schooling options, but it was too expensive.
“With two toddlers in the home, groceries and gasoline were priority, and like so many south Texas residents, my quality education didn’t make the budget,” she said. “In the RGV, 90% of us are Hispanic and so many of us are first-generation college and high school graduates like myself. Our abuelos, our parents, make so many sacrifices to give us the American dream and so often the public school system fails to meet us there. Therefore, in a community where poverty is high and test scores are low, school choice, HB 3, would allow us the opportunity of the American dream, a fighting chance and where our zip code no longer dictates our destiny.”
‘I think Rep. Schoolcraft should recuse himself’
The hearing started to get testy when Lynn Davenport asked Rep. Alan Schoolcraft, R-Guadalupe, to recuse himself from the vote due to campaign funding he received from Gov. Greg Abbott.
Schoolcraft, who originally served in the Texas House from 1981-1993, won a primary against former Rep. John Kuempel. After Kuempel voted to kill similar legislation in 2023, Abbott’s campaign donated $965,617.68 to Schoolcraft’s campaign — one of many donations the campaign made to Republicans challenging incumbent Republicans who voted against school choice.
“I think Rep. Schoolcraft should recuse himself because of the money that the governor gave him to buy that seat,” Davenport said. “I’m serious, I think this is a really serious issue.”
“Hold up a second,” Buckley said. “Don’t make a personal attack against a member of the committee.”
“Was that personal,” Davenport replied. “That was pretty public, it’s all public. Go to Transparency Texas website.”
Moments later, Schoolcraft weighed in.
“School choice is not a new issue to me. Has nothing to do with the governor,” he said. “In 1989-91, I was here advocating for school choice. I filed to run [this session] because of school choice, and it was over a month after I filed that I first heard from the governor.”
‘It’s about your testimony and the credibility of your testimony’
Tensions between commenters and Schoolcraft picked up again at around 3 a.m. After hearing testimony from President of Republicans for Public Education Amy Fennell, Schoolcraft brought up a post on X she made eight hours earlier.
“I’m looking at something that really kind of stuns me,” Schoolcraft said. “It’s a tweet–it’s a picture of you in this room. It says ‘Lord help me. Representative Terri Leo-Wilson won’t shut up. The more she talks, the more the average IQ in this room drops.'”
“And that has to do with the bill how,” Fennell responded.
“It has to do with the credibility of your testimony, that would be it,” Schoolcraft replied.
A couple minutes later, Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, weighed in.
“I’ve also seen tweets of that nature from our governor, so I guess that’s the new standard,” he said.
As Talarico continued to address Fennell, Schoolcraft interjected “The governor’s not on this panel.”
“You have to be recognized by the chairman. You’re a new freshman — that’s how this works,” Talarico responded.
The exchange overshadowed Fennell’s concerns about language in the bill making it cost-prohibitive for parents to sue if they have disagreements over the dispersment of funds.
“If a parent disagrees with with a decision made by the comptroller or an EOA (Educational Opportunity Organization) selected by the comptroller, they have to appeal that decision to the comptroller,” Fennell said. “Any decision made by the comptroller is considered final, so there’s no path for recourse through the comptroller. So let’s say that the parent decides ‘okay, I’m going to contest this, I should not have been denied this — it’s a violation of my Constitutional rights.’ So they decide to file suit against the state. Section 29.374 grants the vendor the right to defend the program, which means the parent has to go up against the state and the vendor. How exactly does that protect parents? Then it gets worse. Let’s say the parent somehow manages to fight off the state and the vendor, wins their lawsuit. The last section of section 8 on page 50 of the bill explicitly states that the bill does not permit the recovery of attorney’s fees against the state, regardless of the outcome of this case.”
