What is Pat Curry saying about the education bills? Part 1: Vouchers

(This is the first in a series of posts I plan to write about what my Texas House Representative, Pat Curry – District 56, is saying about the education bills that are being considered by the Texas Legislature. – ABT) 

Pat Curry (TX House District 56) was recently interviewed by Duke Machado of the Hispanic Republicans of McLennan County.  Here’s the link: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/16aZdvSs9v/

In it, Machado opens with a question about public education, “Let’s start with this education package that just passed. How do you unfold that to people who, for some reason, are not happy with the passage of that?”

Curry replies, “I think so many people are concentrating just on school choice. The fact of the matter is that there’s an entire package of bills that are really, really good for public schools.  School choice is a test. It’s 100,000 students, out of 6 million in the whole state, most of whom are going to be special ed…none of whom are going to be the wealthy, the way that it’s laid out.”

I agree with Curry that there are some potentially good things in HB 2, the school funding bill that passed the Texas House last week.  Some of the other bills in the “package” he mentions might also turn out OK, some, to me, are pretty questionable.  I will go into those in later posts.

I agree with Curry that we should not concentrate on “just” on what he calls “school choice.” (I would call it “school vouchers.”)

At the same time, though… we ARE planning to spend a BILLION dollars of our money on this voucher program, so I do think it is worth a minute to examine our representative’s thoughts about it.

First, I’m not sure what Mr. Curry means by “school choice is a test.”  Does he mean we are just testing it out to see if it works?  If so, there’s nothing in the bill that specifies how we would know if it is working or not.  The bill does not spell out what we expect school vouchers to do for us.

Toward the end of the discussion about public ed issues in the interview Mr. Curry says, “I’m proud of school choice. I think it will make our schools better, and I think that we will drive our scores up.”  So, let’s say, based on that statement, that test scores are the way he believes we are going to measure if the voucher program is working or not.

Private school voucher students are not going to be required to take the same test as public school students, so we will not be able to tell if it is working by simply comparing “apples to apples” test scores between the two.

Research on the academic benefits of voucher & voucher-like programs in other states is mixed.  Some studies, notably from Florida, show a slight gain for public schools who face competition from private schools fueled by vouchers.  Other states, notably Louisiana and Indiana, show losses in math and not much difference in reading following implementation of voucher and voucher-like programs.  So, perhaps Curry’s confidence is justified, perhaps not.

Regardless, however, of what measure he might be thinking we will use to see whether this voucher program “works,” I don’t see anything in the bill that indicates in any way that we are going to stop using vouchers if they don’t work.  There is not a sunset clause of any kind to suggest that we are even going to take a look at how things are going in a few years and see if we are getting whatever it is we think we are paying for…

Curry also says that probably most of the students who will be served by the vouchers will be Special Ed students. Well.  Maybe. But I don’t see any particularly good reason to think so.

It is true that if more students apply for the vouchers than we can accommodate with the billion dollars we have set aside, that there will be a lottery.  And, in the case of a lottery, it is true that the first priority to receive voucher money will be “Children with disabilities from families earning at or below 500% of the federal poverty level (FPL).” 

However, that does not necessarily mean that most of the recipients will be special ed students – at least it doesn’t look that way if you use McLennan County for an example.  For special ed students to take advantage of school vouchers there would need to be a private school available that serves special ed students.

There may be some private schools in McLennan County that serve special ed students, but if there are, it is not at all obvious from doing a web search.  The Texas Private School Association website does not list any McLennan County schools in their list of schools that serve students with special needs.  If you go to the Wacoprivateschools.com website and click on the “special needs schools” category, you get no listings.  If you google, “What private schools in McLennan County serve special ed students?”- you don’t get any specific listings.  If you use ChatGPT you find that Reicher “Provides accommodations for learning differences, including small class sizes and individualized support,” and Waco Montessori School “Utilizes the Montessori method, which can be beneficial for neurodivergent students,” and not much else.

That’s not an exhaustive search of course. I did not call every private school in the county to find out how they serve special needs students. I would be glad for someone who knows more about special ed than I do to send me a list of the private schools in McLennan County that serve special ed kids.  I would love to be able to share that list far and wide with parents of special ed students who are interested in taking advantage of the voucher program. Not having such a list at this point, I have to wonder if there will be very many private schools that serve special ed students available to Mr. Curry’s constituents in McLennan County. Maybe there are. Maybe there are not.

Even if the parents of a special ed student can find a private school close enough to make attendance feasible, there could still be other barriers such as additional tuition, fees and expenses beyond what the voucher covers.  That’s probably why special needs students make up only a small percentage of the students who use vouchers in other states that offer similar “school choice” programs.

Taking all that into consideration, I don’t really see any reason to think that “most” of the students who use the Texas voucher program, especially in McLennan County, will be special ed students. Of course that remains to be seen.

Curry also says that none of the students who use the program will be wealthy.  That’s only true if by “none” he really means “up to 20%.”  It is true that the total number of students whose household income exceeds 500% of the federal poverty guideline who can receive a voucher is capped at 20%.  But 20% of a billion dollars is still 200 million dollars.  That is more than the whole annual budget for Waco ISD.  Thank goodness our legislators capped the percentage that could go to families making 500% of the federal poverty guideline and up! But still, 20% is not nothing.

Mr. Curry says he is proud of school choice – only time will tell if that pride is justified.  I have my doubts, but I’ll admit I’ve been wrong before. Vouchers are coming, so we will get our chance to see how they work.

As of now, the appropriation to pay for vouchers will have to be renewed each session. Since there is no sunset provision, it will be up to us, the voters, to elect representatives who will ask every session if these vouchers are really the best use of our money, and to make sure that the money set aside for vouchers does not drain needed funds from the public schools that serve the vast majority of our Texas School Children.

Note: This blog post was updated on 4.21.25.  It previously stated that the 20% cap on applicants from families making more than 500% of the federal poverty guidelines expired at the end of the 2026-2027 school year.  That was amended during House floor discussion so that the 20% cap does not expire.