An evenly divided panel voiced views for and against school choice during School Choice: What’s Right for Texas, organized by the Texas Tribune.
The discussion occurred at the Tribune’s Studio 919 in Austin and featured Ector County ISD Superintendent Scott Muri, Laura Colangelo, executive director, Texas Private Schools Association, Michelle Smith, executive director, Raise Your Hand Texas, and Randan Steinhauser, national school choice director, Young Americans for Liberty. Brian Lopez, public education reporter for The Texas Tribune, was the moderator.
Lopez said the education savings accounts would be state funded accounts that parents will have access to to pay for things like private school tuition, home schooling and in some cases high school and college education.
Steinhauser said she thinks choice schools is the right move for Texas; Colangelo agreed, but Muri and Smith begged to differ. Sticking points were public education’s constant need for funding, high salaries of superintendents, bloated bureaucracy, how accountability would work both on student outcomes and financially and lack of access by economically disadvantaged students to school choice. The average cost of private school tuition in Texas is more than $10,000 a year, according to privateschoolreview.com.
“I would say we’ve seen such a transition over the last 10 years. We’ve seen private school choice programs be enacted across the country, and while we’ve sort of been beating this drum beat for years advocating for private school choice it wasn’t really until COVID that we saw parents coming out in huge droves,” Steinhauser said. “COVID really revealed a lot of deep cracks in our system. Parents were all of a sudden in a front-row seat of what they’re children were learning and they were oftentimes surprised at either what they were learning or perhaps what they weren’t.”
Parents were also vexed by school closures, mask mandates and what they saw as “questionable curriculum.”
Steinhauser said parents also saw school violence and bullying increase and students’ mental health declining.
“I would say that now we see a rise (in the) … effort for universal education savings accounts because parents recognize that students should have access to a multitude of educational options, including private schools; including home schooling; virtual schools and so I think that now is the best time that we could possibly empower parents with education savings accounts. I’m very proud of and excited to see Gov. Abbott come out very strong on this,” Steinhauser said.
Smith said everyone saw challenges during COVID and all students deserve a quality education.
“That is the responsibility of the state to make sure that 5.4 million kids are going to get the education that they need. I don’t think that just handing them out to other vendors, or to other environments,” is the best use of taxpayer dollars, Smith added.
Colangelo said her organization is not setting itself in opposition to public schools and they appreciate the Herculean effort it takes to educate the 5.4 million children in the state.
“We consider ourselves a partner in that effort. We do think it’s time for some kids to have more options and we’re ready to make that happen,” Colangelo said.
As a local school system, Muri said he is very proud of the choices and options public schools provide. ECISD has 14 choice campuses, formerly known as magnet schools, in the district.
“Public schools were created really on behalf of the opportunity we have to serve our own community. I have seven elected trustees that are parents themselves. … They’re involved in the decision making. In fact, they hold us accountable for making sure that we are meeting the needs of our own students and school districts across the state of Texas are filled with choices and opportunities that are a reflection of their own community. That is our responsibility to listen to them and understand and take care of the needs of the children that we serve,” Muri said.
“Certainly, the pandemic has demonstrated to us that there are more opportunities that we have in public schools today to more effectively meet the needs of students,” he added.
As they advocate for education in Texas, the pandemic indicated that more funding, more opportunities to think differently about the type of supports that they provide. Choices and options are something Muri said they believe in.
“As a public school entity (we’re) very proud of the choices and options that we provide and are excited to continue to expand on the choices and options based upon the requests of parents and the needs of our students,” he added.
Asked if he was for or against education savings accounts, Muri said he is in favor of choices and options for parents.
“I’m in favor of public schools being supportive of the needs of our parents, and again, I think we are responsive today … we listen and act and adjust to the needs of moms and dads, so I’m definitely a fan of investments in public education to make sure that we are effectively meeting the needs of students,” Muri said.
Steinhauser said when the discussion about choice started to heat up in Texas about 10 years ago, they were demonized. “Right now, we are now seeing as a result of the efforts to advance school choice in Texas, our friends in the public school system talking about choice more than they ever have,” Steinhauser said. “I think that’s an example of how when you push and you push for parents to have freedom and educational choice it causes everyone to respond. Oftentimes we hear about if we have school choice programs it’s going to hurt our public schools. I think the opposite is true. I think that when parents are given an option, it causes all schools to respond and it causes outcomes to increase. We’ve seen this across the country where we have those school choice programs that it causes outcomes for all students to improve.”
Colangelo said private schools have two levels of accountability — parents and accreditation. Parents can take their children out of private school any time and the accreditation process for private schools is very robust.
“What it certifies is that private schools meet or exceed the standards that are in public schools. The way this works is that it’s a pretty labor intensive system, but a group of peer leaders, school leaders from other schools (come) to the private school campus for usually around three days. They look at everything; they analyze every aspect of the school — governance, finance, curriculum, teacher credentials, standardized test scores. They sit in classrooms. They talk to the school board. They talk to parents. They talk to the community …,” Colangelo said.
They make sure the school is meeting the standards of their accreditor, which then assures that it’s at least the minimum standard of what children are getting in public schools, she said.
They look at the whole program of the school and make sure it is meeting the needs of those students.
“If it’s not, then they won’t be accredited, and if they’re not accredited, they won’t participate in this program,” Colangelo said.
Smith said public school accountability is based on one test and one day, which doesn’t take into account all the amazing things happening in public schools.
“Instead we have this narrative that our schools are failing and we need to send kids to a voucher school, but the only thing they’re measuring our public schools on is the test,” Smith said.
She mentioned that voucher programs in other states have not worked out well.
Muri said public schools are ultimately accountable to the children, followed by parents and taxpayers.
“Those three entities are really the drivers of what we do in public education today. We are fully accredited. Part of our opportunity is to be an accredited institution. Those are public facing, very transparent opportunities for us to be held accountable. We have public board meetings. We have trustees that are publicly elected to represent the needs of our students, our parents and our taxpayers. Each school very transparently displays publicly the results of our state accountability system; the results of our state accreditation process … But ultimately (we are) accountable to the children that we serve, to the families, the parents that we serve as well as the taxpayers within our own community,” Muri said.
