HOUSTON — A new report for the University of Houston and Texas Southern University broke down how Texas parents view a school voucher system and educational savings account.
The five-year survey project launched by UH’s Public Administration program and TSU’s Public Affairs Department showed that out of the 2,500 people surveyed 65 percent of Texans support adopting legislation that would provide school vouchers to all parents in Texas.
That is a 16 percent increase from what we reported in a previous survey last October.
A school voucher system gives parents the choice to send their kindergarten through 12th-grade children to a private school using allocated tax dollars.
An educational savings account creates a government-funded bank account for parents who choose not to send their children to public schools and they could use that money to help pay for private school tuition.
Here are some more details of the survey.
- 69 percent of Texans support adopting legislation that would create educational savings accounts for all parents in Texas, with 30 percent strongly supporting this legislation.
- 59 percent of Texans support adopting legislation that would provide school vouchers only to low-income parents in Texas.
Now, if you look at political party numbers and race, Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats to support school voucher legislation that would benefit all parents.
However, slightly less likely than Democrats to support school voucher legislation that would only benefit low-income parents.
- 70 percent of Black Texans, 64 percent of Latino Texans, and 63 percent of white Texans support adopting school choice legislation benefiting all parents in relatively comparable proportions.
However, the report also found Black and Hispanic Texans were more likely than white Texans to support legislation that would provide school vouchers only to low-income parents.