The Texas Senate hopes that sixth time’s the charm after they passed a $1 billion school voucher bill on Wednesday. This time, they are supported by a massive ad buy from the Club for Growth.
The Club for Growth is a large conservative advocacy group founded in 1999. One of its largest donors is Jeff Yass, the Pennsylvania billionaire who has been pouring millions of dollars into school voucher fights around the country. It’s unclear why Yass has made school vouchers his main cause. In the past, he has derided public school teachers as overpaid and overly protected by their unions.
Starting on Thursday, ads from the Club for Growth started appearing on television and in the Austin American-Statesman. The total ad buy amount is unknown, but is at least $1 million. The television quotes Governor Greg Abbott, a fierce voucher proponent, from his recent State of the State address.
“Texas must be No. 1 in educating our children. Parents should be empowered to choose the school that’s best for their child.”
“School choice” is the misleading phrase typically used by pro-voucher Republicans. Texas already allows parents to send their child to any school of their choosing or to home school them. If a student needs to access resources at a public school other than the one they are zoned to, they are free to transfer.
What the voucher system actually does is allow parents to use taxpayer money (in the current bill, $10,000) to pay for tuition at private schools. The practice is opposed by public school advocates for several reasons. One, these schools have more freedom to deny admittance to marginalized groups such as LGBT students and do not have to provide accommodations to disabled students.
Two, most of these schools are wealthy Christian academies in urban and suburban areas, meaning that the money is essentially a transfer from secular public coffers to conservative Christian churches that may use it to support Republican politicians. Three, every student lost from a public school to a private one drains the funding from the public school, and in Texas almost every public school district is currently in a severe budget crunch.
Since the crusade to pass vouchers in Texas began, Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives have opposed the measure, thwarting the Senate and Abbott’s plans. Rural Republicans worry that vouchers will impact their local high schools, which are often the largest employer in the district as a hub for social activity.
Rural House Republican opposition to vouchers led to an intraparty war in the last election as Abbott, Yass, and other big money donors funded primary challenges, a favorite tactic of the Club for Growth. Nine of the eleven Republicans who blocked vouchers in 2023 lost their primaries in 2024.
The ads are likely aimed at any holdouts, reminding them of how feverishly Abbott, Yass, and other Republicans want to see vouchers passed and the power of the public schools broken.
