School choice was a hot topic during a Tarrant County GOP discussion of legislative priorities for the 2025 session, which starts next week.
The debate Monday night, between education activist and local Fort Worth mom Hollie Plemons and the Texas Home School Coalition Director of Public Policy Jeremy Newman, focused on whether school choice is good for Texas.
Plemons stated she is against education savings accounts because she is for limited government and believes ESAs would expand the government.
“The last bill was $36.4 billion. It also does expand government,” said Plemons. “It expands TEA [the Texas Education Agency] by like 100 employees. It expands our education service centers, which are far-leftist organizations, and then it also expands our comptroller’s office, because the education savings accounts are going to be run through the comptroller’s office, and $15 million of the $500 million from the surplus that’s been set aside for the vouchers is going to be going straight to the comptroller.”
Newman spoke in favor of ESAs, arguing that “it’s a misnomer that it [school choice] is an expansion of government” and that it would save taxpayers money.
“I mean, there are 73 Fiscal studies in the country that have ever been done on this topic, and 68 of them found that it saved money, not cost money, when you put in an ESA program or any type of school choice program,” said Newman. “And so it just depends on what you mean by expansion of government. I mean, it takes people to do the job, but it costs less. You save money.”
Plemons argued that there is no way to pass ESA legislation without government strings attached.
“When the government has their money, they put the strings on it. It’s their money. It was taken from us through our taxes, and now it belongs to the government,” said Plemons. “If they are going to be giving it back to us, they are going to be adding strings to it …They cannot just give us money without having accountability.”
Newman stated that all school choice legislation that has ever been filed in Texas contains no new taxes.
“Every single one of them uses existing tax dollars, and it uses them more efficiently than they are currently being used. So the question is, can my neighbor, of their own accord, participate in the program they think is good for their child, using tax dollars we are already collecting for public education? That’s the question, right?” questioned Newman.
Additionally, Newman stated that in drafting school choice legislation, he would make the measure as broad as possible so anyone can participate in the program.
“I would make a list of eligible expenses the student can use that’s as broad as possible, so the student, the parent, has as much control as possible over how the program is used for their child. And I would make eligibility for the students as broad as possible. I would make the list of places you’re allowed to purchase things from as broad as possible so that it’s easy for people to participate,” Newman argued.
Contrary to Newman’s proposal, Plemons said she would like to see a tax exemption measure that would allow parents to keep their tax dollars to allow them to choose the best school for their children.
“On a tax exemption bill, I would love to see that the maximum amount that you could keep of your tax dollars would be $10,000 and then you will need to settle for $8,000 considering that is the amount that they are talking about for the ESA. Your I&S would still go 20 percent of your M&O would still go to your local school district, and then you would keep the rest. And so then you could decide, and then it would be your money truly going to that private school,” said Plemons.
In their closing arguments, both Plemons and Newman agreed they want what’s best for children and families, but differed on how to achieve it.
“What I would like to see happen in Texas is for our children to be able to read, write, and do math. I want all children to be able to do that and not just worry about the low-income children. I’m not just worried about the rich kids. I’m not just worried about the middle-class kids. I’m not just worried about my kids. I’m worried about all children,” said Plemons. “So what I would like to see happen is to see that we spend some time trying to fix public education and do something about that. If we want to do something to give parents an option where they can take their dollars that they don’t ever give to government and they just keep them to give them a tax exemption… give the people what they want, because that’s what they want.”
Newman brought the question back to whose decision school choice should be and that lawmakers can fix public education while also passing ESAs.
“We can work on fixing public education and do other good things at the same time, right?” questioned Newman. “I just think we need to at least prioritize fact over theater here.”
“If this was a personal choice, programs would have never been proposed in the country,” said Newman. “That would be one thing. But we have about five decades in history, over 30 plus states, more than 75 programs that give us a list of things that do actually happen and do not actually happen in these programs.”
Newman added that in other states where school choice has passed, parent satisfaction was more than 91 percent on average and school safety has improved. He noted that school choice will not solve all problems but it will create improvements.
The 89th Legislative Session begins on January 14.
