The Texas Senate passed the largest school voucher program in the country tonight

I’ve spent most of today watching the back-and-forth on SB2, Texas’ school voucher bill that will provide $1 billion in tax dollars to 100,000 Texas students, with $10,000 to attend private schools, or $11,500 for disabled students to attend private schools, or $2,000 to subsidize home school programs.

I appreciate the Democrats who spoke out against the bill and offered amendments to improve transparency and accountability in the bill. Some of the amendments offered:

• The bill as written provides 80 percent of these 100,000 slots to low-income families. But a huge sticking point has been that the definition of “low-income” in this bill is up to 500 percent of the federal poverty level. What does that look like? A single mother who makes $20K per year (100 percent of the federal poverty level) has the same chance of getting a slot as a family of four making $156K per year:

  

  José Menéndez tried to lower this percentage in an amendment. It was rejected. He also tried to amend the bill to make sure that private schools that receive funding have been open for at least three years, because there’s currently no accreditation standards for private schools to receive this money. Rejected. He tried to amend it to include early childhood centers, which was something a lot of the people who spoke in the public hearing addressed. Still rejected.

  
  Another amendment from Menendez tried to hold private schools to some of the same standards as public schools if they're going to receive taxpayer funds.
  
  Creighton says no. "If we're going to turn private schools into public schools, we don't need ESAs [education savings accounts, aka vouchers.]"

  

  Yeah, I mean, that’s sort of the whole thing. Republicans want to send taxpayer money to schools that don’t have to adopt the same standards — admission standards, accessibility accommodations, plain old common sense fairness rules, to name a few — as public schools do. So of course people with certain prejudices will find safe haven in these schools for their children, because they don’t have to comply with anything onerous!
  

• Paul Bettencourt stated during debate that 1.7 million Texas children have reported being bullied in school, another reason to allow for taxpayer-funded school choice. So I guess giving 100,000 kids the ability to find another school will solve this problem.
  
  Later in the day, Menendez offered an amendment that would impose the same bullying protections that are in public schools to private schools receiving taxpayer money. Creighton says nah, private schools don't have this problem.
  

• Molly Cook offered an amendment to compel private schools receiving taxpayer money to make their budgets public in order to increase transparency. Creighton opposed with no explanation.
  

• Senator Hinojosa offered an amendment regarding teachers/staff and sexual misconduct with students in private schools receiving taxpayer money, to bring standards up to those in public schools, so private school teachers can't just move around from unregulated religious school to unregulated religious school.
  
  This is a HUGE issue given the way Texas Southern Baptists have covered up so many sex abuse allegations within their churches. Creighton doesn’t allow it on this bill, but says he will allow it in another bill if introduced, so watch this space.
  

• The honorable Creighton from Conroe dragged the night on with a final speech that he swore wasn’t the speech he’d planned because he was feeling so inspired by RAGE! He then went on to read from his prepared notes. He attacked teachers unions, blamed his Democratic peers for aping union talking points, saying Democrats are more beholden to AFT than precious little bullied babies who can’t read. He then he bragged about the Houston ISD takeover by the state, which he says has improved student outcomes with 2,000 fewer administrators.
  
  Houston begs to differ, sir.

At 8 p.m., the voucher bill passed the Senate 19-12. It now moves to the House, where it could turn into a massacre, who knows. Would you like to contact your House representative about your feelings on this bill?

I’m sure other news broke today and other bills were filed, but I’ve spent eight hours keeping an eye on this bill, which is probably the most important of the session, so I’m done.

Not only that, I started the day stuck in an elevator for 25 minutes while trying to get to therapy this morning. It was my greatest elevator fear come true, and it’s crazy because I had a bad feeling when I got into the elevator to begin with. It was wrapped in that moving quilt stuff, which makes everything feel dirty. Then it stopped at three floors, the last of which no one got on or off. I knew something was afoot.

A few seconds later, I swiftly ca-chunked half a floor downward and then the elevator shuddered to a stop. The floor light blinked. I pressed the emergency button. A woman answered and said she was calling for help. She offered to stay on the line with me, but I told her I was OK. I called my therapist and we did a mini-session on the phone as I waited for the elevator fixer man to get there. A building manager stood outside on the floor and called to me to make sure I was OK.

In quiet moments I stared at the floor of the elevator and thought, “I can pee here if I need to, I’m sure they’ll understand.” I didn’t need to pee.

When I was finally released from my tiny crate, the building manager was there to ask how I was doing and escorted me onward to my therapist’s office, handing me his card. He was very sweet. I was very shaken.

Three Good Things:

1. I got stuck in an elevator and it turned out fine.
2. I saw a really cool stick today on a walk.
3. I had a good conversation with a raccoon just now who was on the porch outside my office window. She really got me.