School choice isn’t to blame for Texas schools’ struggles

As school choice nears passage in the Texas House, opponents are already claiming school choice will deprive public schools of funding and force them to close.

While this may sound logical, the truth is, they’re already closing and struggling to pay their bills – and school choice isn’t even enacted yet.

A simple internet search pulls up headlines such as:

• More Central Texas school districts making cuts due to funding issues 
• Keller ISD faces $9.4 million budget shortfall 
• East Texas district closes schools citing more competition  
• Hundreds of Texas Teachers May Lose Jobs as Schools Struggle With Funding 

This warrants an examination of the facts, and the hard reality that school districts have been mismanaging funds for years.  

The truth is their financial house of cards is falling, even as they are about to face greater exposure once more parents are given a choice of where they want to send their kids, and the tax dollars that follow. 

Multiple Texas school districts are closing schools, consolidating and facing layoffs. This results from years of extra spending and poor management of funds given by the federal government during COVID-19. 

Smart districts knew those funds wouldn’t last forever and put them toward short-term needs. But many districts spent them on hiring new staff, which increased the school system’s bottom line but was not sustainable long term. 

Districts have also done a poor job managing and forecasting enrollment. 

Everyone knows birthrates are on an overall decline, and even though Texas is a growing state with net migration gain, many districts are still contracting or struggling to maintain their numbers. 

As public schools shrink, districts must contend with underused and overstaffed facilities. Half-empty classrooms are expensive, but districts don’t want to eliminate union jobs, so taxpayers continue to pay and pay. 

But now that the state is unwilling to fund this endless expenditure of capital, especially amidst lackluster test scores, school systems don’t know what to do besides beat up on school choice, claiming it will kill what’s already dying or decreasing. 

Yet parents are already voting with their feet. 

This is one reason for the public enrollment drop, as more families choose private school or homeschooling, tired of the woke agenda and pro-LGBTQ policies present in some schools (journalists have done several exposés on districts that have promised to help parents circumvent the law against boys playing in girls’ sports). 

When Democrats say they want to “fully fund public schools,” they are saying they want to forever fund an institution that has mismanaged its finances, grown its staff, and neglected the success of children, many of whom can’t read or do math at grade level. 

More funding isn’t the answer; school choice is. 

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then pouring money into a broken system is nothing short of crazy. 

Instead, allowing parents to pick the school they believe is best for their children will empower educational systems that work – including some public schools – and sanction those that don’t. 

The pain’s already here for public school districts that operate outside the reality of parents’ desires and the state’s ability to pay. Just look at all the budget cuts and consolidations happening across the state. 

All school choice will do is further what’s already happening.  

And it won’t just expose, it will offer a way out, a leg up and a hopeful exit for frustrated parents who want more for their children. 

Many parents are happy with their public schools. Many others would like a change. Empowering parents works and will provide financial accountability and incentive for tax dollars to be well-spent, not wasted on union priorities and the broken system that puts adults over students’ success. 

For Texas, school choice can’t come soon enough. 

Don’t believe the lies that it will kill public schools. Many are already dying on their own. 

School choice just lets parents and students off the sinking ship. 

In 2025 and beyond, and in the Lone Star State, let freedom ring.