Carole Haynes - Education Policy Analyst/Consultant Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, kinds of school choice is good, but what kind
of choice do you really get with Texas school choice?
Six twenty two is our time here in Houston's morning News.
Carol Haynes joins us AT education policy analyst and consultants.
She wrote an article for The American Thinker about the
Texas school choice bill. I think she thinks that maybe
we've got sold a little bit of a bill of
goods here. There's a lot of limitations on this bill, Carol.

(00:23):
For one thing, there's enough money in the kiddy here
about a billion dollars for about one hundred thousand Texas
school students to take advantage of school choice and to
get that stipend. But there's over five million kids going
to school in Texas, so we're talking about a rather
small sampling to begin with.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
That's correct. We actually have six point three million school
age children here. Now, granted that even in other schools
where there's school choice bills, not everybody will want to
leave the public school then use it. However, this is
being marketed and so to the public as the universal spill.

(01:00):
It's not. It's a lottery. There are just a few people,
a few children who will be eligible to use it,
and in fact, the only way they can use it
is to have been in the public school prior to
using this essay, and the ESSA simply is an acronym
for educational savings account.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Okay, so if you go to a private school, now
you're not eligible. If you've never been in public school,
you've only been in a private school or home school,
you're not eligible for this.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, they have to have been in a public school
about ninety percent of the time, just prior to using this.
So I'm not sure we could say that if they
at some point been in the homeschool or private school.
But they have to just prior to using this have
been in a public school. They can't just say I'm
in a private school and now all of a sudden,
I get to use this money. They have to the
point is to pull them out of the public school.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Okay, So how does this work? If you're a parent
who wants to participate in this, and you want you're
hoping you're going to be one of the lucky one
hundred thousand us through the process. What do you have
to do in order to make yourself eligible? How do
you apply to the state for this money?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Well, you would have to apply to the Texas Controller
and there's a cap of twenty percent for the number
of participants by families who are earning more than five
hundred percent of the federal poverty level, and that is
around one hundred and sixty one thousand for a family
of four. Now here's the catch in this case. Instead

(02:26):
of families being able to use this ESA this account
and say I'll just take this money and I will
go and I will buy the instructural materials from my child,
they have to go to the state controller. And in
this case, the State Controller office will have selected several vendors,

(02:48):
so they have to go to state approved vendors and
they have to they have to apply for this and
they have to This is where they turn all of
their requirements then and there for whatever they won't funded.
And not only is her tuition funded at a private school,

(03:10):
but not at a home school. It would be funded
at a private school. They can have their instructural materials funded.
But again they have to buy those materials through this vendor.
So everything is go to the Controller's office, go through
these vendors and then and then that's how you're going
to get things paid. For and you're reimbursed.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Okay, so you have to know how it's.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Often done parasally prefer having a credit card where they
can go buy the materials and be reimbursed.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
You know. Carol, Carol, Carol Haynes. Again with this education
policy and listen consultants, I think a lot of parents
were under the impression anyway what was going to happen
was is that every student in Texas has X amount
of dollars they go along with them to a public school,
that they would just be able to choose either where
what public school their child went to, or to be

(04:02):
able to take that money and put it towards a
private education. That's not how the way this is working
at all, is it?

Speaker 2 (04:08):
No? But that's exactly what the public is being told,
because I've had many calls people calling me and saying, hey,
can I now use this for my child? Well, the
answer is no, you simply cannot. Number one, you probably
make too much money and you just simply can't do that.
It's just going to be out of a lottery. It's
just a pick and choose there and it will pay

(04:29):
for about one hundred thousand students, depending on how much
they we'll get all right.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Well, I guess it's a start. It's something, but it's
not what we hoped it would be at this point,
Carol Hanes, thank you. Education policy analyst and consultant Carol
Haynes at six twenty seven