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March 26, 2015      7:09 PM

Voucher debate gets underway in Senate Education

Bills were left pending; some fiery exchanges and head-scratching moments ensued

The Senate Education Committee on Thursday took up a trio of school voucher bills in a marathon committee hearing that lasted nearly 10 hours, included some fiery exchanges and produced some head-scratching moments as well. None of the bills up for debate were voted on in committee.

The bills, which appeared to be headed toward some single vehicle for $100 million in tuition tax credits for business contributions would be modeled after an existing program in Florida: The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, created in 2010, is approaching $450 million for the 2015-16 school year.

Perhaps the political genius of such a proposal is that it can claim to use no public tax dollars while giving low and moderate-income families a $6,000 per child tax credit to be potentially supplemented by scholarships. The state can claim a credit because that leaves $2,000 a child behind for the state or school district.

Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, was by far the Republican who offered the most criticism of any of the bills. Seliger asked Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, if she was okay with the fact that, under her bill, it would be legal for a parent to use the money to send their children to "madrasas" where they might learn to hate America. “I am willing to allow the dollars to follow the child,” Campbell said.

No one who spoke to the panel was more direct than retired US Senator Phil Gramm, whose wife Wendy has served as chair of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Gramm spoke nostalgically of his mother scraping together the dollars to send his brother to Catholic school and then on to a college education. He also said he’s no expert on these issues but cares deeply about them.

By Kimberly Reeves