Teachers File Suit Against State For Trying To Implement Backdoor Voucher Program

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Has the Texas Education Agency (TEA) found a backdoor entry into a prohibited voucher program that would somehow allow state funds to be used for private schools? It seems like the Texas State Teacher's Association (TSTA) believes so.

The agency has filed a lawsuit against TEA, claiming it is using a grant designed to provide $6 Million US dollars to help prevent high school students from dropping out. The state has a one-third dropout rate in its public schools and the dropout recovery grants are a way to help those schools set up after school or after hours programs that will assist dropouts in earning their high school diploma.

TEA awarded three of those grants to nonprofit corporations:

Christian Fellowship of San Antonio
San Marcos-based Community Action Inc. of Hays, Caldwell and Blanco Counties
Healy Murphy Center Inc. of San Antonio

TEA also rejected the applications of 22 public school districts. Lawmakers and educators alike have likened TEA's and the state's Education Commissioner, Robert Scott's decision to one that is contrary with what the 2007 dropout recovery program law intended in that private institutions were never mentioned as part of the program law.

The Dallas Morning News explains that the lawsuit filed states "education laws do not authorize the TEA to award public money to private, nonprofit organizations for educational programs that compete with public school programs serving students in kindergarten through the 12th grade."

The teacher's agency president, Rita Haecker, also stated that the awarding of these vouchers to private institutions clearly takes away from the limited resources available and shortchanges the public school children who are the ones in need of the programs.

"Given the finite pool of money available for dropout recovery and the pressing needs in our state, diverting public money to private educational programs clearly shortchanges public schools that need it and could effectively use it," she said.

A press release by the TSTA equated the move by TEA as a way to bypass an already rejected plan to implement a voucher system in Texas. Governor Rick Perry was looking for a way to push his "Stealth Voucher Plan" through and might have succeeded.

In 2007, the Texas House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a budget rider that prohibited the use of state funds for private school vouchers. Both sides of the political arena agreed that vouchers were not the way to go and they prevented them from ever seeing daylight. Yet, determined to get it through, this awarding of dropout grants to private schools might have been the key to getting in the backdoor.

The TSTA hopes to prevent the distribution of these vouchers to the three nonprofit private corporations through its lawsuit.

In response to the allegations, Mr. Scott was quoted in the Dallas article:

"This state has a serious dropout problem," he said. "We need to be marshalling all our forces to respond to it. It's incredible that TSTA thinks that nonprofit organizations don't have a role to play in reducing the dropout problem and increasing the graduation rate."

When approved education grants are intended to serve a specific population of students, in this case those who are directly linked to the high dropout rate in the state, should the grants even be open to private school applicants?

An interesting and worthwhile fight.