On December 15, 2023, Greg Abbott endorsed Trent Ashby, the representative for the 9th District of Texas, due to his support of school vouchers. School vouchers give parents the opportunity to send their kids to private schools. However, like most bills, it is more complicated than that.
The problem with school vouchers
Despite the tagline “freedom of choice,” school vouchers do entirely the opposite and take away people’s right to choose. By using state dollars on school vouchers, less money goes to public schools. Thus, the people who have no choice but to send their children to public school will have a poor quality of education. They will also not have access to resources that would help the child choose the type of life they want.
School vouchers also do not help the intended population. Low-income families were supposed to be the ones to benefit from school vouchers. However, studies also show that 75 percent of the families applying for school vouchers were not enrolled in public schools. Studies also show that the majority of people who receive school vouchers already attend private schools or have the resources to do so. Thus, the school vouchers significantly increased the gap between the rich and the poor.
Trent Ashby for representative
Given the problems of school vouchers, it is clear that Ashby is not a representative of the people, only himself. The school vouchers do nothing to solve any problems of the people but rather exacerbate them. The vouchers only helped Ashby get the support of Greg Abbott, who clearly has an agenda of his own. Thus, Ashby must go.
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