AUSTIN — Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows said Thursday that creating a private-school voucher program in Texas is “the defining issue” of the legislative session, reassuring a crowd of conservative supporters that their long wait for school choice was over.
“Our moment has arrived, and we have the momentum on our side to get this done,” Burrows, R-Lubbock, told organizers, activists and party faithful at a policy summit hosted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an influential conservative think tank based in Austin.
House Bill 3 , creating education savings accounts to be used by families to pay private-school costs, was filed Thursday morning by House Education Committee Chairman Brad Buckley, R-Salado.
The bill includes universal eligibility for roughly $10,000 education savings accounts, with higher amounts available to special needs students and low-income and special-needs families prioritized. The bill also includes the ability to roll over ESA funds and ties future growth of the program to public education funding increases.
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House leaders also filed House Bill 2 , the public school finance bill, which Burrows said would make “historic investments” in public education.
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In some of his most extensive public remarks on the school choice issue since he was elected to lead the House in January, Burrows called the pair of bills “the House’s two-step solution to education reform.”
“School choice doesn’t damage public schools or take money away from them. School choice is important to the education ecosystem, creating more options for those who have none,” Burrows said. “I believe we can fully fund public education while recognizing that one size does not fit all. Families deserve options. Schools deserve resources. One without the other leaves Texas short.”
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The Texas Senate passed its version of a voucher-style program earlier this month.
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The two bills differ in how they would prioritize applicants and the dollar amount of a family’s education savings account, with the House version tying the value of an account to a percentage of what public schools get for every child served.
“Despite what the detractors say, you can provide meaningful opportunities to parents to choose where their child is and also take care of public education,” Burrows said to loud cheers from the audience. “You can do that, and that message will be sent loud and clear.”
Budget leaders have set aside $1 billion for the education savings accounts program, a chief policy goal for Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both Republicans, as well as state party officials and most Republican lawmakers in the GOP-dominated Texas Legislature.
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Opponents of school choice programs say the plans put money in the pockets of political supporters rather than adding funding to public schools, which are accessible to more students and cannot turn away children based on anything other than geography.
Republicans should fix the underfunded public school system they oversee rather than divert students and drain funding, opponents say.
“Vouchers are a scam that takes precious tax dollars out of our neighborhood schools and into unaccountable private schools that can discriminate against kids,” said Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, co-chair of the House Democratic Caucus special committee on education.
“In states that have passed a private school voucher scam, the vast majority of money goes to wealthy families already sending their child to private school — slowly starving the public schools,“ Talarico said Thursday.
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The 2025 Texas Policy Summit at the University of Texas at Austin also featured Abbott and other political heavyweights, including Patrick on Thursday afternoon and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Friday.
Burrows also promised cuts to property and business taxes and more support for small businesses by slicing red tape to make it easier for entrepreneurs to succeed. Another priority, he told the summit, is strengthening career technical and trade training for students who aspire to careers that don’t require a college degree.
“We’re not done working on making sure there’s fewer and fewer barriers to people achieving the dream of working for themselves,” said Burrows, serving his first term as speaker.
For decades, the Texas House has resisted passing a school choice program, opposed by Democrats and a handful of mostly rural Republicans. Abbott spent millions on campaign donations to oust Republican opponents of school choice during last year’s primaries, replacing 11 GOP “no” votes in the Texas House with supporters.
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Patrick, who has vigorously criticized previous House speakers for the failure to pass school choice legislation, expressed confidence that the Legislature will come together on a plan to send Abbott.
Speaking in the same forum Burrows addressed earlier Thursday, Patrick said he had not finished reading the House school choice bill, “but it looks good so far.”
“We’re going to get it done,” he said. “I’m confident the speaker will get it through, and we’ll work on any differences in the bills and we’ll have a great school choice program.”
Whether the House could pass school choice before the session ends in June was a key issue in Burrows’ race for House speaker. Supporters of his opponent, Rep. David Cook, R-Mansfield, hammered Burrows for declining to come out forcefully on the issue before House members chose a speaker on the legislative session’s opening day.
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Thursday’s speech left no doubt on where he stands, capping several days of Burrows making brief statements of support on social media, at an event with Abbott and in interviews.
On stage Wednesday at the same conference, Abbott acknowledged Burrows’ increasingly vocal optimism that the House would approve the governor’s top legislative priority.
“We all must appreciate and comprehend and recognize Texas history when it’s made,” Abbott said.
Speaker Dustin Burrows promises school choice will pass: ‘Our moment has arrived’
