TEXAS, USA — In 2021, the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston and the Barbara Jordan – Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University kicked off a five-year survey project to determine how Texans are evolving as the population does.
The partnership released the results of its new survey on school vouchers this summer and found that 65% of Texans support adopting legislation to create a program for all Texans.
Mark Jones, a senior research fellow at the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs told WFAA, “It’s a two-to-one margin.”
In the survey, support was stronger for vouchers among African American and Latino Texans. “Among Latino democrats, it’s more 3/5 support, 2/5 opposed," Jones added.
Despite limited voucher program proposals that would be available for low-income families or those in under-performing public school boundaries, Jones shared that its data reflects that “Texas republican voters do not want to see voucher legislation that’s restricted only to low-income Texans. They want to see, essentially, vouchers for everyone.”
Josh Cowen, an education policy professor at Michigan State University, just released a new book based on his nearly two decades of researching school voucher programs called, “The Privateers.”
“When it comes to school vouchers, it is not actually about school choice. It’s the school’s choice," Cowen explained. "All school vouchers in every state reserve the right for the individual schools to reject the child on any basis that they want. 70% of voucher users today were already in private school to begin with.”
Jones shared that its survey included more than 2,000 respondents, double that of normal survey work.
One area he highlighted was the shift among African American Texans who, “While they agree with the critiques of vouchers, they want to give vouchers a chance at least in their communities because they believe those will provide, at least the potential for, a better future for their children and children in their communities.”
Cowen is critical of school vouchers, saying, “The last positive study to show that vouchers improved academics as measured by test scores is 22 years old now. I’m warning as many folks as I can that these things really do hurt kids and families, and they are not offering what their proponents sell.”
Governor Greg Abbott seems confident that he will have enough pro-voucher votes to pass a plan in the next legislative session, emphasizing that his goal is to “support the freedom of parents to educate their kids the way they see best.”