As a school voucher program edges close to law, one potential victim could be the proud Texas tradition of high school football.
In Texas, high school football is almost a religion unto itself, especially in small rural towns. Scholarships are a major source of opportunity for teenagers, local restaurants depend on the post-game boom to stay afloat, and football events knit communities together across social divides.
It’s also an expensive extracurricular activity, and those are often the first thing on the chopping block when budgets get cut. With a voucher system possibly on the way as soon as September, it has football coaches in the state worried. The Texas High School Coaches Association sent a letter to members earlier this month urging them to call their state congress members and oppose the voucher system currently established in Senate Bill 2.
“Meaningful funding increases for all public-school students should be the first priority before approving costly private school subsidies,” it read.
The voucher system would allow parents to use taxpayer money to enroll their children in private schools. Sometimes referred to as school choice, it is a system that has drained public school funds in the places it has been activated. In Ohio, one of the oldest voucher states, the Economic Policy Institute says that Cleveland area schools lost nearly $1,000 per child, a total loss of $13 million.
Schools receive funding from the state based on enrollment, currently $6,160 per student. Every student lost to a private school is $6,160 less in the budget that either has to be made up with property taxes or deep cuts. If children leave public schools for private ones, their worth is essentially transferred.
This specific problem mostly affects large cities. Out of Texas’s 254 counties, only half have private schools, and those are mostly wealthy Christian academies in urban and suburban areas. Rural areas would see less overall drain, but the vouchers would still have an effect.
That same Economic Policy Institute report showed that in Arizona a projected $65 million price tag for vouchers in 2023 exploded into a $708 million one, leading to a significant budget crisis. In Texas, the cost will easily reach into the tens of billions if a similar path is taken.
That will affect rural Texas schools. In 2011, Texas experienced a budget crisis. The legislature slashed $4 billion from school funding. Even football was affected, mostly through transportation cutbacks. Most districts found ways to maintain their football, but even that was a loss. Money spent keeping the Friday Night Lights on has come at the expense of other things like field trips, art programs, and even the marching band. Football itself might survive, but the infrastructure around it withers.
Texas high school football is built on the public school system, and vouchers threaten that system. Whether star players leave their hometowns to play in private school leagues or the people employed by the local high school lose their jobs to keep football going, the cost of vouchers will be felt in some way on the high school gridiron.
