Senate OKs Voucher Bill, House Passes Cell Phone Ban Bill | April 25, 2025

The Texas Senate on Thursday, April 24, concurred with the Texas House of Representatives' amendments to Senate Bill 2, which creates a statewide education savings account (ESA) voucher bill, providing state funds to families who send their students to private schools.

The bill allocates $1 billion to fund the program, which would provide participating families an amount equal to 85%% of what public schools get for each student through local and federal funding, estimated to be between $10,300 and $10,900 each year per child. Children with disabilities would be eligible for up to $30,000 in additional money. ESA recipients would not be required to take STAAR, though they would be required to take another nationally recognized exam. 

During last week's debate on SB 2 in the House, amendments were proposed that would be the issue to a statewide vote before becoming law, but those measures were voted down. It was initially expected that a conference committee would be formed to iron out the differences between the Senate's initially approved version of the bill and the version that was approved by the House. However, the Senate passed it by a vote of 19-12, which will send it to the Governor's desk to become law. 

In other education-related legislation development, the House passed HB 1481 this week, which would require public school districts and charter schools to adopt policies prohibiting the use of personal communications devices, similar to the phone-free learning environment Keller ISD implemented last fall. The Senate passed a similar bill, SB 2365, last week. It remains to be seen which version might be carried forward to be considered by the two chambers.