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TYLER – School leaders in East Texas share their opinions following the Texas House\u2019s passage of the private school voucher program early Thursday morning. <\/p>\nTYLER – School leaders in East Texas share their opinions following the Texas House\u2019s passage of the private school voucher program early Thursday morning. <\/p>\n
The Texas House and Senate have each passed different versions of the bill and will now need to negotiate a compromise. Once an agreement is reached, the final version will be sent to Gov. Abbott\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n
Joel Enge, Director of Kingdom Life Academy, is a vocal advocate for the proposed bill, which he believes empowers families with greater educational choice .\u201cParents now have the opportunity to choose,\u201d Enge said. \u201cThey have educational freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kingdom Life Academy, a project-based micro-Christian school in Tyler, sees education savings accounts as a game-changer\u2014one that could open doors for more students to access schools like theirs.<\/p>\n
\u201cEducation savings accounts are going to allow students to attend schools like Kingdom Life Academy at a minimal or no cost,\u201d Enge said. <\/p>\n
He added that this kind of support could also inspire the creation of more innovative schools across East Texas. \u201cTeachers are going to have the opportunity, they\u2019re going to have the financial support to step out of the traditional educational system,\u201d Enge said. <\/p>\n
Others were disappointed by the news, like Lindale ISD Superintendent Stan Suratt, who said \u201cit\u2019s embarrassing, it\u2019s terrible leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are wealthy families sending their kids to private schools where they\u2019re going to get most of the money,\u201d Surratt said. \u201cThat\u2019s just not right, it\u2019s not a conservative principle and it\u2019s not fair to public schools.\u201d <\/p>\n
He believes lawmakers have embarrassed Texas. \u201cMost of the people in Texas are against it,\u201d Suratt said. \u201cMost of the representatives and senators are against it, but they\u2019re too scared politically to vote against the governor.\u201d <\/p>\n
Surratt believes this won\u2019t have a big impact on his district, adding that most East Texans do not have access to private school education. Now, both school leaders\u2014along with many educators across Texas\u2014are awaiting the final version and how it will impact their classrooms. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TYLER – School leaders in East Texas share their opinions following the Texas House\u2019s passage of the private school voucher program early Thursday morning. The Texas House and Senate have each passed different versions of the bill and will now need to negotiate a compromise. Once an agreement is reached, the final version will be … Continue reading Schools react to the passage of school vouchers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1405864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2024\/05\/3507cf85ee17f961df235099e4ab294c-e1744984168846-200x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1405861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-09 17:27:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2024\/05\/3507cf85ee17f961df235099e4ab294c-e1744984168846-200x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1405861"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1405931,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405861\/revisions\/1405931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1405864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1405861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1405861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1405861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}