The Texas Tribune reports that Catholic leaders are leading supporters of Governor Abbott’s push for vouchers, which would offset enrollment declines.
As the Texas Legislature debates school vouchers, one of the staunchest supporters of the initiative has been the Catholic Church.
Texas Catholic leaders have been among the longest-running advocates for Gov. Greg Abbott’s top current legislative priority, which would allow parents to use taxpayer money for private education expenses. That’s true even as some other religious leaders have firmly opposed the legislation.
Why are they divided? Catholic leaders say other religious leaders don’t fully appreciate the voucher program’s benefits, particularly its potential to expand access to private education. Voucher critics say Catholic leaders are acting in the interest of their own schools, which have experienced declining enrollment for decades, while promoting a program that could harm public schools.
A voucher program would give parents the opportunity to choose a religious education regardless of their income level, said Jennifer Allmon, executive director of the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, which oversees all 254 Catholic schools in Texas.
“It’ll take a few years, but our primary hope is that it will open the doors of our schools to even more low-income families and provide even greater access for those who wish to use Catholic schools for the education of their children,” Allmon said.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I assume charter schools put a big dent in Catholic school enrollment over the years.
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In Saint Louis City the opening of the Concept Charter School, the Gateway Science Academy in the Catholic Epiphany Parish drew a number of students from surrounding Catholic Parishes. It caused big financial problems for the Catholic parishes. The Concept Charter School chain is Gulen.
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Adding to St. Louis’s woes, the US Department of Education gave a wealthy organization $35 million to open more charters in St. Louis. The city board of education asked to return the grant. There are 90 public schools and 36 charter schoools in the district. No more!
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The Catholic Church is riding the parasitic privatization wave because it is experiencing a cash flow problem due to the financial settlements that were imposed by the courts as result of a number of priests abusing children.
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The Catholic Church is the whale. Catholic organizations are the nation’s 3rd largest employer. Yes, the Church takes money wherever it can get it but, we shouldn’t forget the big picture expressed in Jefferson’s warning, in every age, in every country, the priest aligns with the despot.
“The Texas Catholic Conference employs 5 legislative lobbyists.”
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Way back when the original charter school movement told authorizers that they did not really want much from the government to run the schools. They said they could work with the amount of funds each student was allocated by the state or local authorities.
Nope!!!! Over time the charters schools started begging, no demanding, more funding. An example is lease assistance to pay for the facilities that charter school occupy. That amounts to millions of dollars per state. The owners of the facilities that charters schools are using are getting rich just off the lease assistance for the schools. Many people who run charter schools are being paid more than Public School Superintendents who have to manage the number of students many times bigger than the charter schools. The amount of money given to charter schools is getting bigger and bigger by the year.
Now the private schools have their hands out for a cut of the smaller pie. That includes the religious schools.
When will it end. It will end when all public schools are privatized. That will be the end of public education and probably the end of democracy as we know it.
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Actually, Moeone, at the start of the charter movement, the advocates claimed that they could get better results at LESS cost than public schools, because they cut out all the bureaucracy. As soon as they got established, they changed their tune and argued for the same funding. Then they wanted a share of local funding. Then facilities funding. Some charter operators realized they could make lots of money by owning the building and leasing it to their own school at inflated rates. Success Academy in NYC leases space at a building it owns. Some national chains build and lease the buildings to their schools.
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Diane, Guess I was just trying to be a little kind. I was on the NM Public School Capital Outlay Council for several years. This was the outfit that besides authorizing funding for school facility projects it was also tasked with the responsibility of authorizing funds for charter school facility leases. At one time the council was authorizing over $21M a year for charter school leases. I imagine that amount has grown.
Just think what the state could do with $21M if those funds were available for regular public schools facilities and not going into the pockets of people who own the building in which charter schools are located.
It is graft. Simply graft
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Thanks for linking to the Tribune article. The Tribune could follow up with information about the efforts of Notre Dame’s Nicole Stelle Garnet.
The question provoked by the article- why do Catholic Conferences camp out with school choice politicians when the results present a mixed bag for them? Beyond the potential opportunity for libertarian dollars- their agenda is not narrow? Raw Story has a report about Matt Walsh (Daily Wire) who took the insult that he was a theocratic fascist and embraced it using it as a self descriptor. An internet search of Matt Walsh informs readers about his religious views and political successes.
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We know that Pope Francis hired McKinsey (and, called on world Church leaders to advocate for school choice), we know that the 9th largest law firm in the US, Jones Day (had 12 lawyers in Trump’s admin.), sought out Catholic organizations to provide pro bono legal services for them and, we know that the Church hires lobbyists, “including some of the most prestigious and powerful lobbying firms…”. As example, WGRZ reported about the NY Catholic Conference’s attempt to derail The Child Victims Act (9-7-2018, “Catholic Church spends millions for lobbyists”).
It does not overstate, to say, the situation relative to the advancement of taxpayer funding for religious schools and the Catholic church’s successful campaign for school choice, is the cost of profound blindness that had huge consequences. Public schools don’t need enemies when they have the clueless and those defensive of the Catholic Church as friends.
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The Texas Charter School Association spends big on lobbying. Transparency USA has a list of lobbying clients. The site lists the Charter School Association as using taxpayer funds for lobbying. The listing for Raise Your Hand (Texas) for Public Schools is “private” funding.
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Raise Your Hand Texas is funded by grocery store owner Charles Butt. He is 85, has no children, supports public schools, and runs the Texas chain H-E-B.
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Thanks Diane. I hadn’t read about the organization until I I saw the Transparency USA listing. Transparency USA data shows a Republican judicial candidate paid a Catholic Church, $5,000, from campaign funds.
I hadn’t thought about the potential angles, possibly paying the churches to use their facilities for functions.
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