One special session currently underway,
and Governor Abbott promises
there will be more.
At least one will focus on school choice.
Education, savings accounts or school
vouchers are an Abbott priority.
Speaker Dave Phelan last week
formed a Select House committee
to look at these options.
He named 15 members to that committee,
including Republican Matt Shahe,
whose district covers parts of
Collin County and North Dallas.
Representative,
it's good to see you this morni.
Well, thanks for having me.
So does the formation
of this Select Committee indicate that
there might be some support for educational
savings accounts or school vouc,
whatever you want to call them in the House?
Certainly there was no appetiter
that during the regular session.
Yeah, it's definitely signaling that we're
going to continue to take a look at it.
We spent a lot of time on the
topic during the regular sessio.
And so, yes, appetite is still there.
I think you have members of the
legislator that are hearing from
constituents that polling tellss
overwhelmingly support this con.
So it's really going to be incut
upon us to figure out what kindf
form we're going to be working .
What would you be in favor of wn
it comes to ESA's or vouchers?
So I actually had a piece of legislation
myself that actually created $10
million fund that needy kids,
special needs children can actually apply
for those in the form of a scholarship.
What was unique about my legisln
that $100 million was totally donation.
So we didn't use.
Now we don't we not use any
public education dollars,
we didn't use any state dollars.
So it would be corporations,
individuals that would donate to this fund.
There's some tax incentives to
to be able to do that.
And so it would be scholarships
that children would apply to.
You just talked about kids who are in
need of special education progr.
Are you in favor of expanding
theirs and savings accounts to
all kids in Texas? Yeah. I mean,
in general I am.
I don't know how realistic that.
I think what we'll probably end up doing
is doing something that's targeted again,
like our special needs.
Look, if you look at like the
district that I represent, righ,
I've got great schools like Pla,
Frisco, Prosper, Salina,
these are great schools,
high graduation rates,
most your children are going to college.
It's really the areas in Texas
where we have either a minority
communities or our low income
communities that are struggling.
That's just the reality.
So what are we going to
do as a legislative body?
What are we going to do as a
state to help address some of te
education shortfalls in those a?
And so I think what you'll see
is at the end of the day maybe
not something quite as broad,
but really targeted like special
needs like low income students.
One of the other things that
this committee is tasked
with is supporting educators.
Teacher pay raises did not pass
during the regular session.
Why did that happen?
The House said $4.5 billion
allocated for that.
That piece of legislation didn't pass.
What we ended up doing is we
supported enrollment growth to e
tune of over 3 billion dollars.
2.4 billion for what we
call the golden pennies.
But that's funding for our
schools that aren't part of that
recapture or Robin Hood process.
Look. We are well aware of the
importance of our teachers.
My wife is a teacher,
so we live it every day.
The our teachers,
what I when I get in front of
a teacher group of teachers,
I tell them they are the economc
engine of our state because
they are creating our workforce.
So we're going to revisit that.
So not only are we looking at,
you know,
just the parental choice and education,
those types of things,
but we're looking at testing.
We're going to look at what we
can do and do enhance our schoos
and I think some of that's going
to be teacher pay raises as wel.
We are watching kind of an
interesting time in state government.
You're a Republican.
The speaker of the House is a Republican,
the Lieutenant governor and the governor,
and yet they are fighting
quite publicly right now.
Do you worry that sort of this public
disagreement is hurtful to your party?
No, the House and the Senate que
frankly always argues towards te
end of this end of the session.
So this is, is normal.
Look, this is a healthy debate whether it's,
you know, school choice or it's
how to provide property tax rel.
We're blessed in state of Texas
that we had this huge surplus.
So we're trying to figure out.
How to provide the best property
tax relief for for our constitu?
Look, the Republican Party does a great
job at the end of the day of cog
back together for a reelection d
doing what's great for the state of Texas.
Representative Shaheen, thanks o
much for your time this morning.
You bet. Thanks for having me.