Lawmakers have less than three weeks to decide on hundreds of pending bills before the 89th Texas legislative session wraps on June 2, and several could have sweeping effects on K-12 public education.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott got his priority school vouchers approved, which will give participating families about $10,000 for private education, but now school safety and discipline, DEI bans for K-12, religious education, teacher certification incentives, and cell phone bans are under consideration.
“I think some of it will pass, some of it won’t pass,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University. “That’s a balance that Speaker [Dustin] Burrows needs to maintain between what he needs to do for the Republican members of his team in terms of helping them avoid any competitive primary challenges by passing as much conservative legislation as possible, but at the same time not alienating the Democrats who are the reason he’s Speaker.”
So far this session, Burrows has been leaning toward the conservatives, Jones said.
“The Democrats haven’t really gotten all that much,” he said. “Democrats have not gotten a great deal in exchange for their support of Speaker Burrows, other than individual-level benefits that have aided them in being more effective legislators or allowed them to pass non-ideological legislation that is a priority for them. As a party, Democrats have not been able to block many of the bills they oppose like school choice, and increasingly, it looks like bail reform.”
Among Burrows’ priorities was House Bill 4, an effort to scrap the STAAR test in lieu of a series of shorter exams to be administered throughout the year. The bill passed the House “almost unanimously” on Monday. There has been a regular outcry since STAAR began not only from parents for the pressure it puts on students but for teachers as well whose salaries are often tied to how the kids they taught did on the all-important test.
Moving to three shorter tests given at the beginning, middle and end of the year also seems to fall more in line with what Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles has been doing with more frequent testing throughout the school year.
House Bill 1481, introduced by Rep. Caroline Fairly, R-Amarillo, aims to restrict the use of cell phones, tablets and smart watches during the school day in an effort to improve students’ mental health and academic performance by minimizing distractions and reducing cyberbullying.
Rep. Alma Allen, D-Houston, raised concerns during a hearing in March that the ban would hinder students from contacting law enforcement or their parents during an emergency, such as the 2022 Uvalde Elementary School shooting. A lobbyist for the Association of Texas Professional Educators has said the ban should specify “during instructional time” rather than the entire school day.
Fairly’s bill was approved by the House of Representatives and is pending a vote in the Senate’s Education K-16 Committee. A similar companion bill, SB 2365, was filed by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe.
Political experts say the ban is likely to pass because of the bipartisan support it’s received and the favorable vote in the House.
“There are some opponents, but I think there are some pretty good rebuttals that the last thing you want your child doing if there is a mass shooter event is talking on the phone,” Jones said. “You would also not want 50 different students calling 911 simultaneously, giving somewhat different accounts. We’re also talking about something that is hopefully an extremely rare occurrence versus the daily adverse effects of having phones in the classrooms.”
It seems likely that some students will bring in cell phones anyway, and the punishment options will be determined by individual school district policies, Jones said.
“This would give the schools the authority to do it,” he said. “They would have to develop policies that can range from not bringing the phone at all to leaving it at a secure place when they arrive.”
House Bill 6, introduced by Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, aims to give schools more flexibility in suspending students for disruptive behavior. The bill was filed in response to task force findings that teacher shortages are caused by ineffective discipline support and poor working conditions.
While suspending youth who display disruptive behavior could prevent incidents like the teacher in Corsicana ISD who was blinded when a student threw a hanger at her, it also creates problems for students who have mental health challenges or don’t have anywhere to go when they’re not in school. The bill language is vague and leaves room for bias, officials with the Texas Educational Policy Institute have said.
HB 6 passed the House and is under consideration by the Senate K-16 Education Committee. Two-thirds of Democrats supported it in the House.
“At the end of the day, it has majority Democratic support,” Jones said. “It’ll depend in part I guess on what the Senate thinks about it, but coming out of the House, it has strong bipartisan support.”
Another bill with strong support is SB 260, filed by Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston. It would allot an additional $30,000 per campus annually to cover safety upgrades. Unanimously passed by the Senate, the bill is under consideration in the House.
Senate Bill 2253, authored by Creighton, would require schools to have only certified teachers in core subjects by the 2029-30 school year. Approved in the House and waiting on a Senate vote, the bill mandates that some teachers would get a $1,000 stipend to get certified by the end of the next school year.
More than half of Texas teachers entered classrooms uncertified last year, said officials with Houston Endowment, a nonpartisan nonprofit that administers more than $200,000 in grants annually and invests about $100 million a year in public education.
Houston Endowment and the Charles Butt Foundation recently hosted an event to announce the Houston Teacher Pathways initiative, which pairs community colleges with universities to build feeder patterns for aspiring teachers and ensures opportunities for certification.
Houston Endowment Program Officer Carlos Villagrana said the nonprofit set a goal of ensuring that more certified teachers enter the classroom.
“In order for us to accomplish that, we really need to think about how we are investing in more practice-based preparation that ensures more teachers are showing up to their classroom day one ready,” Villagrana said. “We know that will translate to better student outcomes.”
The state’s commitment to incentivizing teachers through stipends or compensation that keeps up with inflation is a good place to start, but education leaders must consider investing in and building up a more robust ecosystem that prioritizes teacher preparation and empowers them for success, he added.
“There are lots of local partners and stakeholders who are committed to improving our region’s teacher workforce,” he said. “They’re working hard to remove some barriers and increase access to some of these preparation programs. We are excited to be able to convene lots of the stakeholders together to highlight best practices and provide overall support to the region to strengthen the teacher workforce.”
Public universities have already taken a major hit as DEI policies have shut down course offerings and hiring practices, but lower education campuses haven’t felt the brunt … yet.
Senate Bill 12, filed by Creighton, would expand the DEI ban to K-12 schools. It passed the Senate 20-11 in March as lawmakers voted along party lines. The bill is a priority for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and has been championed by Governor Abbott.
DEI programs are “using millions of taxpayer dollars meant for the classroom to fund political activism and political agendas,” Creighton said in March.
Senate Bill 13, proposed by Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, gives parents and school boards more control over libraries and book bans for content deemed indecent or profane. It passed the Senate and is awaiting approval in the House.
Republican lawmakers are also pressing forward with Senate bills 10 and 11, which would require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms and time set aside for prayer. SB 10, authored by Phil King, R-Weatherford, and SB 11, written by Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, have a solid chance of passing, Jones said.
“The Ten Commandments and the prayers and the DEI bills, those are ones that Burrows may balance out, allowing some to pass to signal that under his leadership, conservative bills pass, but also having a few not pass so he can signal to Democrats that they did benefit from having him as speaker,” Jones said. “The prayer [bill] has more support than the Ten Commandments. If he brings it to the floor, it passes because no Republican is going to vote against it.”
The session wraps up in about three weeks, and any House bill that doesn’t pass by midnight on Thursday dies. Senate bills have until midnight on May 27, Jones said. The mood at the Capitol is frenzied, as leaders in both political parties are engaging in “chubbing,” where they debate bills at length to slow down the process and kill legislation they don’t like.
“They’re scrambling and there are some high tensions,” Jones said.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
