Scrutinizing the Impact and Underpinnings of School Vouchers in Texas

Unravel the contentious issue of school vouchers with us and our honored guest, Dr. Rebecca Good. We promise a comprehensive exploration of the potential impacts of such a system on Texas education - from the plight of public schools and the turbulent politics surrounding the issue, to the opportunities it could create for parents and students. Are vouchers the key to a better education or a ticking time bomb threatening to blow up our public schools? Let's find out.

As we venture into the heart of this debate, we'll dissect the four school choice options available in Texas and how vouchers could be utilized for each. We'll explore the stark contrasts and commonalities between the pro-voucher and anti-voucher camps, and analyze the financial implications of such a system. We shine a bright light on the political undercurrents shaping the discourse and scrutinize the motivations behind the push for school privatization. Join us and Dr. Good as we grapple with these complex issues, leaving no stone unturned, in our quest to understand the potential impact of school vouchers on Texan education. Don’t be left out of this essential conversation.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and welcome to our podcast series, the Father Factor Podcast. I'm your host, byron Ricks, and joining me is my co-host and good friend, josh Wombrod. The objective is to give a voice to fathers who are not able to be with their kids, mothers who are raising kids without fathers, and children who, unfortunately, are growing up without fathers in their lives.

Speaker 3: 0:25

It take more than names to be a man oh yeah. It take more than sex to be a dad oh yeah. It take more than good to be the bad oh yeah, it take more. It take more, more, more, more, more.

Speaker 1: 0:45

Hello, hello, good morning everyone. I'm your host, Byron Ricks. Writing with me today is my co-host, Josh Wombrod, and my guest co-host, my son Brandon Ricks. How are you, gentlemen, doing today?

Speaker 4: 0:57

Good, good good.

Speaker 5: 0:59

Hello, how are you?

Speaker 1: 1:01

There he goes, there he goes. You know, we are in that month of ghouls and goblins, you know. And Brandon, don't start, don't start.

Speaker 5: 1:14

Hey, listen, I'm only going to start as you start. I had to say anything. I'm here, I come in peace.

Speaker 1: 1:20

Okay, we're in that month. But you know what's amazing to me? When I go to the store and I'm in Costco, I see Christmas trees and stuff, even since last month. What is that?

Speaker 4: 1:31

about no, but that's real because you know my son's got a performance they're going to do in November. And they're going to say oh, there's some skeleton pajamas, we don't want glow in the dark. Just for a number we're going to do, Go pick it up. Well, we go to Walmart. I'm talking about like four or five hours after the email.

Speaker 2: 1:52

It's all.

Speaker 1: 1:52

Christmas stuff being put out.

Speaker 4: 1:54

So you're right. Like they got the costumes in the front of the store, but all of the other theme stuff outside of just that costume. They're moving to Christmas and we've not touched Thanksgiving yet.

Speaker 1: 2:06

But that's been happening year after year over the last few years. For some reason it's the anticipation of Christmas and as though Halloween is not a factor anymore, but yet you have a lot of folks that love Halloween. Now I know that we could get into a Halloween debate because I know my son is here. We've been there before but today we have a different subject matter we're going to address. We have back with us Dr Rebecca Good, who has been with us before, and she's back today talking about a topic that's near and dear to Texans, and Texans that have children in school for sure, and that is about school vouchers.

Speaker 1: 2:51

So we're going to unpack what school vouchers are, what they mean, the impact they could possibly have to the children of Dallas, the ISD programs, the charter programs, private school programs, the parents, the kids themselves. And you, my co-host I'm talking to now, are parents and you have kids and I have grandkids in the school system in Texas and I know Dr Good has grandchildren in the school system in Texas. So, without further ado, I'm going to induce Dr Rebecca Good. Dr Good, how are you this morning?

Speaker 2: 3:27

I'm fine, thank you. I'm here to talk about scary things too.

Speaker 1: 3:31

Okay, you have some.

Speaker 2: 3:36

Yeah, we've got some scary things going on in our special session and our third special session, and so it's going to take me a minute to talk about this because I'm going to talk to the gaps in the room. I'm going to assume not all of you have been keeping up because you're busy. You know you have busy families, busy schedules, but there's important things going on in that legislative session that we need to pay attention to. So vouchers vouchers also are called school choice, and that's become a big thing here in Texas lately, although Governor Abbott has been trying to get that bill passed for several years. The school choice and it depends who you talk to means that the governor at least wants parents in Texas to have more choices as far as where they can send their kids to school. Right now they have their home school, right, the public school, isd. They have charter schools, which are also public schools. They can home school and they can send their child to a private school. So those are four very firm choices that we've had for a long time.

Speaker 1: 4:51

Okay, you said public school, private school charter school.

Speaker 2: 4:55

I'm sorry charter school, isds, isds and then charter schools, which are public schools also. That's why I like to differentiate and say ISD versus charter, but they're both under the public school umbrella.

Speaker 1: 5:08

Right.

Speaker 2: 5:09

And then there's home school.

Speaker 1: 5:10

Home school. Okay, that's what I missed. And then there's private Okay that's so home schools would be a part of the voucher program, if indeed it passed.

Speaker 2: 5:19

It could be, and the reason for that is, if the governor gets his way, he will make available to parents in Texas an education savings account worth $8,000 a year and, by the way, that's more money than ISDs and charters get per kid per year. So that's interesting. A home school parent could tap into that money and use the money for school materials, for homeschooling, for field trips, for homeschooling and so forth. So it's not only for private schools, it would be for parents who do other school choice options. So the voucher system in Texas and they're sort of talking two different ways right now they haven't settled on which way they're going to go Could be available for either all public school children in Texas, as it is in some states, or it could be limited to certain kids from lower economic backgrounds. Different states have different levels, but there's some states that say that if you are in the 25% low socioeconomic range you qualify for these funds to be able to go and take that money to a private school. So, long story short, I've seen it both in Texas right now, where first they were saying make it available for all public school children, and then I've also seen where it's targeted children for those low, socioeconomic and special needs kids, so we don't know which way. The course is a huge cost difference between the two, because if you make it available to all public school children, a higher percentage will tap into it. So that is a very basic understanding of school choice and vouchers that fit under the school choice.

Speaker 2: 7:28

Now why are some people wanting that? Also, people, some parents, are saying the public schools are indoctrinating our kids with all that culture business, and I don't want that for my child. I want my child to go to private school where they're going to get a fine Christian curriculum. Okay, so that's the big push behind why some parents want to take their kids out of public schools. Some parents want to take their kids out of their local public school because, frankly, it's not very good. You have public schools, especially in our lower socioeconomic areas, that haven't paid, been paid attention to by their district, and so their test scores show that their kids are not learning at a high enough level to satisfy some of the parents, and so they want to put their kids in a different environment. So we have lots of people who are for pro-choice and for pro-school choice, and then you have those who say that's not a good idea and, of course, those that say it's not a good idea have some very valid points. First of all, okay, I wanna recap, if I may.

Speaker 2: 8:46

Okay.

Speaker 1: 8:47

Sure, we talked about the four school systems that may be impacted by this, but then I wanna go back to the reasoning that parents are either for or against this, and you said something about the Christian element. Some kids, parents want their children to learn in more of a Christian element, so they wanna put them in a private school. Then other parents, they just didn't like the deterioration of, I guess, the public school systems. Is that so far accurate? Okay?

Speaker 2: 9:26

You've got unsatisfied parents and so they're looking for options, and a school voucher would give them possibly give them additional options by helping to pay for private school or home school materials.

Speaker 1: 9:39

Okay, so the unsatisfied parents could be the unsatisfied for the reasons of again public schools don't teach Christian values, but they haven't taught Christian values, and well, hold on, hold on, don't you Let her lay it out first? No, no, I'm trying to let her lay it out, but I'm just trying to formulate a question that I can make sure I understand that, cause she did say that about the Christian values. Then she said the other piece about what they're learning in school, about the deterioration of the public school system.

Speaker 5: 10:12

Yeah, I think you got different demographics here, right? So if you're looking at the individuals that she's referring to, let's say that's a group of individuals that would say, okay, the principles and values don't match in terms of what's being taught. That's a demographic of people that I think is probably limited to a certain social and economic area, and then you have those that are on another spectrum, exactly.

Speaker 1: 10:38

And that's what I'm trying to separate to make sure that me and my audience understands that those are two different demographic appearance. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:47

Okay, If you have those who are wanting to get their kids out of those public schools that are so woke and they're wanting to teach CRT as it's been labeled now and you know my thoughts around that we call CRT, called the cultural studies in school CRT, when in fact it shouldn't be, but for the essence of time and understanding. Some parents are running from that and some are just liking the option of being able to possibly now afford to put their child in a private school or to afford homeschool setting with that $8,000 ESA account.

Speaker 1: 11:33

Okay.

Speaker 2: 11:34

Now the people who are against it are not only your.

Speaker 1: 11:43

So let's be. When we say CRT for the audience, you're referring to critical race theory. Yes, okay, we can keep going, but I just through that acronym out there, I wanna make sure that my audience knows that's what we were talking about.

Speaker 2: 11:59

Yeah, that's good. Crt has become so connected to that cultural instruction that it's not even explained anymore in articles, because people you know unfortunately think of cultural studies as CRT, when in fact CRT actually leads to socialism. But that's a master's level understanding.

Speaker 1: 12:21

So those are against it. Okay, and that's also your personal belief, okay, right.

Speaker 2: 12:29

No, no, no, no. It is not my personal belief. Okay, it is the. If you study CRT cultural, if you study it Okay. Race theory.

Speaker 1: 12:43

Right.

Speaker 2: 12:44

If you read to the end of the book, of the professor's book, he does not talk about demographic equity, he talks about economic equity.

Speaker 5: 12:51

Yeah, there's indeed socialistic. She's not inaccurate in what she just said. Yeah, Okay.

Speaker 2: 12:58

So people use CRT to connect it with cultural one. In fact, if you read to the end of the book, it's economic equity, but anyway. So the people who are against it are saying, and rightly so, by the way, public funds are going to private institutions and so it dilutes those private funds. The public funds, right, and can we all agree that there aren't enough, that the public schools, charter and ISDs are currently not receiving enough money to fund the instructional programs that are required to get kids to do well on their state tests and to do well in college and career readiness? Would we agree that our schools never have enough money?

Speaker 1: 13:45

Yes.

Speaker 2: 13:48

Yes, I agree. Gentlemen, what do you think about yours? I know, firsthand.

Speaker 1: 13:50

Our schools never have enough money.

Speaker 5: 13:52

Yeah, because I'm always getting hit up for fundraisers and things.

Speaker 2: 13:55

Yeah. So if we all agree and it's a well-known fact that our public schools are underfunded, and yet now we have a governor and others who want to bring a voucher program with savings accounts that are valued at a higher rate than what we send to our districts for those students, for the opportunity to have them leave those public schools and go somewhere else. That doesn't seem very smart when we have underfunded public schools. Well, here's my question.

Speaker 4: 14:38

We also okay.

Speaker 4: 14:39

So when we talk about underfunding and then giving vouchers so they can go to a different school. So let's say school A over here is the preferred school. School B is a school a lot of people are trying to get away from. They skin their kids away from school B to go to school A. Let's just say let's just say the 80-20 rule applies. 80% of the parents say, hey, I want my kids to go to school A. At that point, what does that do to a school's funding where only 20% of what used to be a capacity is now receiving funds? Right, it's gonna cut the school's funding and eventually shut schools down correct, correct, and let's even look at a bigger picture.

Speaker 2: 15:21

Matter of fact, I sent Byron an article yesterday or day before about how there's a legislator who's making a case that the school's funding is going to be a case that vouchers could hurt the teacher retirement program because, as vouchers encourage kids to leave public schools, you need less teachers and you have less teacher public school teachers funding the Texas teacher retirement fund, and we all know that that's not healthy, right? We need healthy people funding our insurance fund so that not only it funds the people who are retired but it will also fund me when I retire, you know.

Speaker 1: 16:04

And so there's a lot when you retire again.

Speaker 2: 16:09

I meant I was putting myself as a young public school teacher. Okay, but you understand that this is much. That's a that's an immediate problem that you mentioned, brandon, about. If 80% go to school, a 20% are left, it closes down the school and then you use less teachers. You have less teachers funding the teacher retirement system.

Speaker 4: 16:30

And so there's a lot of ramifications here.

Speaker 4: 16:32

They live that community. Now this is a school and those parents that left their children there may not have the means or the transportation to get them to school a so that that community is what having to bust children to another school and it just it's recreating the public school system. I mean, I don't want to go down a rabbit hole, but it again. It sounds like in theory it could be a good idea, but it seems like it's kind of like a spider crack that it could go in every different direction.

Speaker 2: 17:00

So let's talk about the data a little bit further on. So let's unpack this whole thing first and then we'll talk about the data, because this has been happening for 20 years in other states as well.

Speaker 1: 17:11

That was a question I was going to have for you, so I'm going to table it because I want to come back to it as it relates to other states, so I'll let you finish so so, yeah, there's a lot that we have to think about before we can say yay or nay to voucher systems that a lot of people are not doing, for example, the.

Speaker 2: 17:37

The reason why it's not being easily passed in the House, for example the House of Representatives, is because the Democrats and rural area Republicans are against vouchers. They know that their little rural school that already makes less money per child than than urban schools will be horribly impacted and could break down one of the community hubs for that little town. You know the schools are the. You know it's. It's the blood and the, the vibrancy of a community. That's Friday night lights, right, and and it's just a huge part of a small city or town is the school system. And even rural Republicans know that allowing a voucher system would possibly hurt small cities and towns. So there's major dispute in the legislative House about why we shouldn't do this.

Speaker 1: 18:50

Another reason we have so then, is this not a bipartisan effort, or you know it?

Speaker 2: 18:59

was in the Senate, but the Senate is is primarily Republican, and we have PACs. You know you have a PAC of like minded people with money who have given campaign funds to certain Republicans to approve the voucher bill. As a matter of fact, Dan Patrick received $3 million from a PAC that supports you know, he's the PAC that supported Paxton during his impeachment also supports vouchers, and so you have a lot of money, big money, behind the the passing of the vouchers. Matter of fact, Governor Abbott has threatened to do what he did with the state school board. The state school board was against vouchers until the last couple of elections when they managed to turn four seats from against voucher candidates to pro voucher candidates because they funded those campaigns. So now Abbott is saying that he is going to do the same for any Republican that is against vouchers. He is going, he's threatening to fund other candidates who are pro vouchers in the next election cycle.

Speaker 1: 20:23

So this is a Republican led initiative.

Speaker 2: 20:28

It is.

Speaker 1: 20:30

And so is there a Republicans? Then if it's with people with money, it sounds like they are trying to take their kids out of schools with Well just say it.

Speaker 5: 20:47

Where are we? Are we dancing around? Just go ahead and say what you get.

Speaker 2: 20:53

It's as obvious to me that it's a horrifically political issue.

Speaker 1: 20:58

But whatever reason people dance around that I'm it feels like when people left the city and moved to the suburbs. Yes, it's, I mean it is integration, segregation, segregation.

Speaker 4: 21:13

The way they integrated schools and people took off running. You know, not my school, not my children, and so I mean, that's what we're avoiding.

Speaker 4: 21:22

That's what. That's what we avoid. And there's some color, there's some money to it, because what I do know about people with money, you know it can be part of. It can be colored, but there's also a major economic part of it too. A lot of those people that have some money don't want their kids hanging out with kids that don't have money. They like the like mindedness as well. So there's part of some color to it, but there's a lot of things revolve around money and getting the best leg up on the competition and all that and getting them away from poor influences.

Speaker 2: 21:52

That's why it'll be interesting to see what kind of voucher program they end up with, if any at all. And that is the target. And remember, the targeted is targeting the low socioeconomic kid or the special needs kid, which happens in some states. But I don't think it's going to end up that way, judging by the money behind it. I mean, the money behind all this are the billionaire West Texas guys done and somebody who fund all these far right packs. And you made a comment, that of something I pulled out from my research, byron, that was in Arizona. More than three-fourths of the students who participated in Arizona voucher program already were in private schools. What's that say? Wow, okay.

Speaker 5: 22:42

Dr. Good, I have a question. I have a question. I feel like we're not. We're talking about the symptoms and not the problem.

Speaker 5: 22:51

I bet you know there's always a reason behind, there's a why behind things, and I don't think that we are diving into the why we have. You know, people do things for reasons, and so you know I'm personally. I have no allegiance to either Democrats or Republicans at all whatsoever. I think that they're both incompetent, to be quite honest. So I'm able to look at this from a balanced perspective.

Speaker 5: 23:15

So I don't get into the politics of things, but I do see ideological and philosophical issues that end up being political and they manifest themselves in that way, and so I think that it's important to get into the root cause of why people have the belief that the public school system is not sufficient, which then makes them want to look for quote unquote solutions. So we can talk about all day long whether or not the voucher is a viable solution or not, but if you were to remove the voucher bill, okay away. Whatever problem that people are having is still in existence. The voucher is just a proposed solution to whatever problem exists, and so I feel like we need to talk more about the problem than the voucher itself.

Speaker 2: 24:12

So, based on what I've read, if you dig deep enough you will find that there's some money. People want to end up privatizing school in Texas, making it all sort of private. It's sort of mind blowing to think that how would that happen? Right, well, over time, if you say to people that the money is tied to the child and not to the school, then over time parents can exercise the right to use that money to do what they want homeschool, private or charter or their ISD. If you do enough of that, it will change the ISDs. It will dilute the ISDs to where they're much smaller and less less apt to be able to handle the diverse type of needs that we have in our private schools right now.

Speaker 2: 25:20

You know the United States is famous for serving all kids. You know, in a lot of countries around the world your special needs kids do not go to school, at least not with other kids. They may be in smaller special needs schools, but they don't get to go to school with the regular kids. And so the fact that we take all kids is because we're, you know we're able to fund it not as well as we should, but we're able to fund it If we keep taking funds away from schools, you will actually start segregating, as you said, not by demographics but by need.

Speaker 2: 25:58

You know you'll have to put all your special ed kids here, because and even some district if you have small districts, think about this if you had small districts over time, if enough kids left the system, they would have to have what they call a co-op. And they do this in rural areas, where you have a co-op of special ed teachers who are there and they just pull kids from all over, and then you have a co-op of ESL kids and because you can't, you know you would be able to serve them. So there's just so many outcomes that happen when you think about trying to privatize school and it's just, it's a scary thing and ultimately our kids' education is impacted because they're in chaos.

Speaker 5: 26:44

So your.

Speaker 2: 26:45

The school system is in chaos.

Speaker 5: 26:47

Your greatest concern of the result of school privatization is the enfranchisement of marginalized groups, ie special needs.

Speaker 2: 27:01

And poverty kids, because poverty is considered an at-risk factor. We get extra money in schools for kids from low socioeconomic backgrounds and what that means is some of you know it weighted ADA, wada that's your daily attendance that you get. And you get a little bit more money each day, a tiny bit percentage. If the kid is special ed, if the kid is ESL, if the kid is pregnant, you get that. There's at-risk factors that earn the school a little bit of extra help money. It's never enough, but it's there so that they can handle and serve kids from their neighborhood with those diverse needs. But once you start making school seem like it's a parent choice to go wherever you want, then ultimately it impacts the school, it impacts the school's funding and it starts making the school less apt and less able to meet the diverse needs.

Speaker 5: 28:06

So what is the why behind privatization? What is the reason why? Somewhat a little, why that pushes there.

Speaker 2: 28:15

Well, you do live If you read it enough, if you dig deep enough. There's a lot of big money in the white community and they don't want their kids going to school with anybody with kids that look like them.

Speaker 5: 28:29

So your belief is that the main motivation behind school privatization is solely and strictly to segregate by ethnicity. That's your belief.

Speaker 2: 28:41

Here's why I think that I have been reading and some of you may have also. You know, nicholas Fuentes is.

Speaker 5: 28:49

Yeah, I know who Nicholas Fuentes is.

Speaker 2: 28:51

Okay, he was recently seen meeting with for seven hours with the head of the packed a very far right packed that, dave Patrick, the $3 million during the Paxton impeachment time. There have been also other cases of people that think that way and your white supremacist thinking who have had contact with these packs. So it's hard not to think that. And so when that was brought to the governor's attention, that the head of the pack that send so much money to these two governor Abbott and and packed Patrick and some other Republicans, abbott's response was that was an unfortunate decision, that was a poor choice. Okay, you mean, because you got caught, you have it.

Speaker 2: 29:47

If you want to read more on it, the Texas Tribune, you should sign up for the Texas Tribune. They did a terrible hack job on the on the education article, which I let them know that, but they're pretty good at following up on this on the politics. They had reporters sneaking around and watching this happen and then reporting on it. So that's why I think that because that's what I'm reading, I didn't just make it up. I'm reading that the people with with white supremacist leanings are meeting with people with big money that are funding campaigns here in Texas.

Speaker 1: 30:24

Okay, we're going to stop that right there for now, because we have run a time on this episode, but you've promised to come back to us and we're going to unpack it some more and then not just unpack it some more, we're going to talk about some, some opportunities, some solutions, should I say, but it still sounds like what I just quoted earlier. It feels like should I say white flight. It feels like it did back in the inner cities when you know, when I grew up in Illinois and I remember we was we moved to neighborhoods and right next door there were white people and other ethnic groups, and in next year there weren't any, so they had moved out. That's what this feels like and we have a lot more unpacked. So, dr Good, can you come back with us on the next show and we can really unpack this some more, I'll be happy to.

Speaker 2: 31:14

Okay, I'll be happy to.

Speaker 1: 31:16

You have been listening to the father factor. My name is Byron Ricks. I'm your host. My co-host today is Josh Wombrock, my son, brandon Ricks. The father factor. Why? Because all your children are equally yours. Until next time, hey, thank you. This is Byron the father factor podcast. Thank you for listening. If you'd like what you heard, subscribe and share and tell us your thoughts. We'd like to hear from you. Perhaps you can be on our show until the father's out there. Remember, all your children are equally yours.