Crowley ISD knows exactly what it wants from the Texas Legislature: more funding for public education and no vouchers.
The school board approved two resolutions outlining the district’s legislative priorities for the special session. The votes were 5-0, with trustees Daryl Davis and Kelicia Stevenson absent.
“They are very clear and direct,” board President La Tonya Woodson-Mayfield said of the resolutions.
Meanwhile, the Senate OK’d a voucher bill that would give families $8,000 in taxpayer dollars to pay for private school and other education expenses, such as uniforms or home-school materials. Senate Bill 1 was approved in an 18-13 vote.
In a message to parents, Superintendent Michael McFarland emphasized the importance of the 30-day special session of the Legislature. Gov. Greg Abbott called the special session — the third this year — to establish vouchers in the state through education savings accounts, a program that gives a set amount of money to families.
“It is critical that you pay close attention to the actions our lawmakers take and how those actions will impact your public schools and our community,” McFarland said.
Public education advocates say vouchers would drain the state’s already financially strained K-12 school systems and not provide enough accountability for what private schools teach nor for how funds are used.
Voucher advocates, though, see education savings accounts as a way to further expand school choice by allowing parents to use public dollars to fund an education that best fits their students.
The Crowley school board’s other legislative priorities are:
- Do not sanction schools for their performance in this year’s A-F ratings, a system that is undergoing a redesign.
- Provide full funding for universal pre-K, subsidize child care for all teachers and expand pre-K eligibility for children of teachers.
- Shift the basis of the state’s school funding formula from attendance to enrollment.
- Restrict charter networks from building new campuses next to traditional public schools that have a B rating or higher.
- Oppose any requirement turning school board elections into partisan races.
As Crowley ISD trustees approved their legislative priorities, the governor told a crowd in Austin he would add teacher pay raises and an increase in public education funding to his special session priorities — if the Legislature gets a voucher bill to his desk.
Jacob Sanchez is an enterprise journalist for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or via Twitter. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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