Texas Catholic Conference Concerned About HB 33;

Prefers Means-Tested School Choice Programs

The Catholic Bishops of Texas support the implementation of school choice programs in a responsible way that protects parental choice and prioritizes children who live in poverty.

• The program proposed in HB 33 by Rep. Sid Miller has not been tested in other states. Furthermore, it does not target the most vulnerable families in our state -- families that need the greatest protection of their parental choice. The legislation also fails to include specific eligibility guidelines for participating private schools, which means that the State may be providing reimbursements for tuition to un-accredited schools that have no accountability to an outside accreditation body. For those reasons, we cannot offer our support to this legislation.

• We support the language in Senate Bill 1847, which was filed in the 82^nd regular session. This legislation allows for the creation of a corporate tax credit program that specifically targets corporate resources to underprivileged students attending accredited private schools. This program would also save the state an estimated $56 million annually. This program has been modeled successfully in nine states, and we can confidently say that it has helped students in both public and private schools in those states.

School choice is ultimately about parents, rather than government, having the authority to choose a school for their children. School choice does not represent a judgment against our Texas public school system nor its teachers or administrators whose public standing would, we believe, be enhanced in a choice environment. Specifically, we advocate for programs that promote the choice of families with limited economic means.

Our support of school choice stems from our Catholic teaching, but different approaches present advantages and disadvantages. We believe that proposals should be initially targeted to help underprivileged students and be limited in scope, so that the effects of the program can be studied. We believe that participating private schools must be accredited to ensure accountability to their students and to the state.

We urge the Texas Legislature to adopt the language from Senate Bill 1847. The program created by this legislation ensures that parental choice of our most vulnerable families will be protected.