AUSTIN, Texas – Texas lawmakers will be back at the State Capitol on Monday for the start of a third special legislative session. Topping Gov. Greg Abbott’s list is legislation to allow parents to use taxpayer dollars to send their kids to private schools.
Public school advocates are already pushing back, and so are some Baptist pastors who are concerned about a plea from the governor over so-called school choice.
On a recent call with pastors, Abbott encouraged them to promote school choice from the pulpit on Oct. 15.
“It's not going to be something laden in politics, where you're supporting a candidate, or a party, or anything like that. You're supporting a cause, a cause that aligns with what God expects of us,” Abbott said.
Although there were several pastors who support school choice on the call, not everyone is happy about the governor’s request.
“It's a shame to try to engage the religious community into wanting and supporting what most of us believe will be a total destruction of public education. And for him to try to use religion and the faith community to do that is terrible,” said Bishop John D. Ogletree, Jr. of First Metropolitan Baptist Church in Houston.
The Texas House has repeatedly rejected school choice, also called "vouchers." Rural Republicans have joined Democrats to fight against any program that would take money away from public schools.
“Republicans in rural areas have significant numbers of evangelical Christians in their district, so this is a good way to bring pressure to bear on those people that he needs to convince,” said Matthew Wilson, an associate professor of political science at Southern Methodist University.
Several current and former leaders from the Baptist General Convention of Texas wrote that the governor’s request “violates the conscience concerning religious liberty and the separation of church and state.”
“What they are opposed to is the explicit call to mention it during Sunday worship and the very close connection between the proposal itself and Governor Abbott as a political official and individual,” Wilson said. “I think many Southern Baptists will end up supporting his proposal, but this certainly is consistent with the long history of emphasis on separationism within that tradition.”
Sheri Allen, who has worked in synagogues for more than a decade, believes the governor’s ask is an “assault to religious liberty” and a “violation of the separation of church and state.”
“I think it's basically another not-so-subtle strategy to support Christian-based private schools, by taking away much-needed funding from public schools,” Allen said. “The Texas Constitution is clear that public funding is not supposed to support religious schools or the teaching of any particular faith. And the governor has no right to ask clergy to actually have them do this in their churches or in any other house of worship, on any day of the week. Also, I don't see him appealing to rabbis to promote school choice Saturday. He's not appealing to any other clergy to promote school choice in their worship services either. That to me is a giant red flag right there about what the intention of this is.”
Wilson says Christian schools will be a “central beneficiary” of any school choice program, if it passes.
“This is why, for example, the Catholic bishops have come out very strongly in favor of school choice, because they would love the opportunity to involve more elementary school kids and high school kids in Catholic education,” Wilson said. “There are currently some financial barriers to doing that. This proposal would really help with that. So absolutely, they stand to gain enrollment; they stand to be able to expand the reach of their offerings. And that's why these religious groups that run schools are generally very much in favor of school choice proposals.”
Abbott says speaking about school choice from the pulpit will compel churchgoers to call their legislators and voice support for a school choice program.
“I don't believe that most of the pastors in our state are going to do that. And I believe that even most of the parishioners are not going to follow up with that, because they believe in the separation of church and state; they believe in our schools,” Bishop Ogletree said.
Even though the governor has publicly focused on the Christian community to promote school choice, his spokesperson says he’s working to reach as many Texans and faith leaders as possible.