Brandon Waltens - Texas Scorecard Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So it's funny two our time here on Houston's Morning News.
School choice big debate starting today in the Texas House.
Joining us to talk about it is Brandon Waltons with
Texas Scorecard. What does the smart money say You've got
anything in the betting pool on this one, Brandon, that
this thing actually comes to a vote and gets voted in,
pasted on. Are you a betting man?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
You know, I'm not a betting man and only can
make predictions, especially with anything that will happen in the
capital at Austin. But you know, this is a pretty
big deal in the sense that if you recall the
last time we had a school choice bill in front
of the House, it was about a year and a
half ago, during the end of the last session special

(00:42):
session actually, and it was voted down. You had a
small group of Republicans shoining with Democrats to kill it.
Since that time period, we've had primary elections where Governor
Greg Abbott has campaigned against many of those Republicans. Of
those Republicans that were against school choice are not coming back,

(01:03):
and so now we're in a situation where you have
a school choice bill on the floor today on the
calendar that has actually a majority of the Chamber of
co authors, which is certainly a good sign. But as
you can imagine, Democrats are not taking this line down,
and there's a lot of speculation about how they're going
to react, what they're going to try to do. They

(01:23):
may try to delay the bill. They may not even
show up today at all. So we'll see what happens
later today. But you know, it's hard to imagine that
Democrats are going to not put up a fight with
for this.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
I would imagine there will be a fight, that's for sure.
Here's the question I have for you about Bob. What
is in the bill itself? You know, from what I've
read about the bill, it kind of strikes me as
being baby steps. We're talking about ten thousand dollars per
student to help families cover private school tuition, textbooks, transportation,
and other qualified expenses. Disability students would get eleven thousand,

(01:59):
five hundred. Homeschools would get a two thousand per child.
But there's only about when you take a look at
what is actually in the budget, there's enough room in
there to actually fund maybe one hundred thousand students. And
you're talking about state that's got millions upon millions of students,
so there's only going to be a small percentage you're
actually going to be able to take advantage of this.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Well, exactly about one hundred thousand students that the current
budget funds about a billion dollars for this. Compare that
to the fact that you know, about eighty billion dollars
is spend on public education. Our state bi annual budget
is three hundred and forty billion dollars. So you know,
we're only talked about a billion dollars here. But you know,
in any case, I think this is a first step.

(02:40):
I think that you know, the governor has said that
he wants to roll this out and then you know,
when the legislature comes back, they can make adjustments, so
they can, you know, maybe allocate more money in the
budget for this next session. But it really is telling
that even with you know, such a small percentage, you know,
one billion dollars of the budget, like I said, compared

(03:02):
to eighty billion dollars, that Democrats and other opponents of
school choice are being so vocal against them.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah, it's really it is quite amazing. So just out curiousity,
I'm sure somebody has thought of this let's say you
get a rush of demand here and you have well
more than one hundred thousand people who apply for this,
how do they determine who? Guess it is going to
be based on need or is it going to be
based on first come, first serve.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
It's a bit of both. I think there is some
preference for low income families inside the bill, at least
for a certain percentage of the spots. And then essentially,
you know, a bit of a lottery system, you know.
Right now, we really don't know. I mean, it'd be
very interesting to see. Certainly, not every student, every family

(03:49):
is going to want to avail themselves of this opportunity
for one reason or another. And so it'll be interesting
to see if this bill does pass, if it does
go into law during the next upcoming school year, you
know how many how many families are going to want
it to take advantage of this.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah, Brandon, thank you, we'sh I had more time Brandon
Walton's Texas scorecard joining us here on news radio seven
forty KTRH. It's six twenty seven