When state lawmakers return to work in Austin next month, supporters of the public education system will have some new allies on their side: the business lobby.
Despite billing itself as a haven for business, Texas currently ranks in the bottom 10 U.S. states when it comes to the amount it spends per student on education — trailing the national average by $4,000 per student, according to the nonprofit Raise Your Hand Texas.
The state hasn’t increased that spending-per-pupil figure, known as Texas’ basic allotment, since 2019.
As that dynamic begins to pose an increasing threat to their future workforce, business leaders across the state are gearing up to try to change it.
“The majority of our production talent is home-grown from this area — particularly the area close to the plant — which means most of our team members are the products of the ISDS in and surrounding Bexar County,” San Antonio-based Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas’ president Susann Kazunas said at a recent forum put on the nonprofit Bexar County Education Coalition (BCEC), which advocates for public policy on behalf of the county’s school districts..
“As a business community, we all know that quality takes intentional investment,” she said. “That’s what our public school system needs now more than ever, and that’s why we’re all gathered here today, because we have a stake in what’s happening in classrooms across Bexar County.”
Last session, the Texas Legislature looked likely to make a major investment in the public education system, until Gov. Greg Abbott’s last-minute insistence that a school voucher program be tied to that public school funding sunk that prospect.
As a result, Bexar County-area school districts, including those around Toyota’s manufacturing plant on the South Side, closed campuses, laid off staff, slashed summer programs and put the brakes on major infrastructure projects in their efforts to save money.
At the BCEC forum at the McNay Art Museum this month, leaders from the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, the Metro SA Chamber, the South Texas Business Partnership and the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce all said the system is reaching a breaking point, and brandished lobbying agendas calling for the state to turn it around.
“We’re not naive enough to believe that public education is not currently under attack in the state of Texas,” said Brett Finley, president and CEO of the Metro SA Chamber (formerly the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce). “Please consider the chambers here in town, the four of us included, as extensions for y’all and your advocacy efforts in this next Texas legislative session.
“It’s going to be one heck of a fight.”
A realistic agenda
Notably absent from the conversation was any mention of the Education Savings Accounts, or school vouchers, that many public school advocates have deemed the biggest threat to their future.
The concept would allow parents to take tax dollars out of public schools and spend it on other education-related expenses, like private-school tuition, and has become a top priority for Abbott, who spent millions this past year electing new lawmakers who agree with them on that issue.
Against that backdrop, business groups that lobby on a variety of issues say they have to be able to work with everyone in Austin, and need to stay focused on goals they view as achievable.
Instead of drawing a line in the sand over school vouchers — as BCEC and other public school advocates have done — a review of local business groups’ lobbying agendas says they’re focused on “fully funding” public schools to support a strong workforce.
The San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and The Greater San Antonio Chamber also made note of what they’d like to see if a voucher program is indeed approved, saying that school systems receiving taxpayer dollars need to be held to the same accountability standards.
“I do think that the governor has the votes on [school vouchers],” the Greater Chamber of Commerce’s Chairman Mario Barrera said in an interview. “The ESAs are going to be with us. The question just becomes, in what format? What kind of accountability or metrics are going to be attached to it?”
“I think what we, as the four chambers, and as a business community in San Antonio, are just really focused on the increasing of public school funding, and increasing teacher salaries,” he added.
While some public school advocates haven’t accepted the idea of vouchers being inevitable, educators at the event were still grateful for the new allies.
State GOP leaders largely framed last year’s public education debate as conservatives fighting for school choice on behalf of parents, versus Democrats and a handful of Republican defectors opposing them on behalf of the teachers’ union.
This year, they won’t be able to make that case.
“I’m looking at this room and I’m saying, ‘You know, this is happening right here,’” Fort Sam Houston Independent School District Superintendent Gary Bates said at the forum. “Everyone under this same roof may have differences of opinion, but one thing that bonds us together is educating all of our students, all children.”
The business case for schools
Kazunas’ keynote address at the event hinted at the type of argument business leaders will be taking to the state capitol this year — though she noted after the event that Toyota doesn’t plan to directly lobby lawmakers on the issue.
Like most businesses that consider putting down roots in San Antonio, Kazunas said, Toyota Motor Corporation knew the education system could be an issue.
The area around the company’s Southside manufacturing plant, where Tundra and Tacoma trucks and Sequoia SUVs are built, is considered economically disadvantaged, and has some of the county’s lowest educational attainment levels.
To help create the talent pipeline needed to staff a 3,700-employee plant where 80% of positions require only a basic skills assessment, Kazunas said that in the past two decades, about 75% of the $50 million Toyota has poured into community programs was for direct grans to the school districts around their plant, STEM education, workforce development initiatives and other education-related programs.
“We’re building tomorrow’s workforce,” Kazunas said.
Having invested heavily in such partnerships, business leaders want to see the state uphold its own commitment to public education — not pull money from public schools to prop up another education system that doesn’t have the same accountability standards and isn’t required to educate all children.
Without mentioning the school voucher fight, Kazunas encouraged attendees at the event to support their local chambers and the BCEC in their fight.
“I think I can speak for most of us when I say that as a parent, you want your kids to be able to contribute to society, and to grow have their own valuable and productive lives,” Kazunas said. ” … Do you know what institution is best positioned to set those students up for success? The public education system.”
Disclosure: In his professional capacity as an attorney, Mario Barrera has provided legal advice to the San Antonio Report.
