How the Comptroller Can Use SB2 to Reform Education and Restore the Family
Wannabe homemaker moms of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your cubicles!
(This post was supposed to be the last of a four-post series. However, it got too long as I wrote it so I’m splitting out the second part and will post it later as a separate piece. Does that mean it’s now a five-part series? Or is this still the last of four and a future post will be separate? Dunno. I’m making this up as I go along. Anyway, the first post is here, the second here, and the third here.)
I will argue below that Parent-Curated Education (PCE), which I described in earlier posts, can have a profound impact on society. But first things first:
How can we enable PCE in Texas using Education Savings Accounts (ESAs)?1
It starts with the Texas Comptroller. He needs to unlock the potential of PCE by writing the right rules for SB2.
Specifically, he needs to do the following:
1. Create a Process for Approving Online Programs That is Fast, Flexible, and Encourages Innovation.
Sec. 29.359(a)(1)(C), says that ESA funds can be used to pay for
an online education course or program.Furthermore, Sec. 28.358(b-1) says
The comptroller may approve a vendor of educational products that provides products or services described by Section. 29.359(a)(1)(C), (2), (4), (6), (8), or (9) for participation in the program in accordance with comptroller rule.What does this mean? Just this: the Comptroller has the authority to decide which online courses can be paid for with ESA funds.
Not TEPSAC. Not TEA. The Comptroller.
This issue is important because many if not most PCE programs rely on an online program. Parents rarely, if ever, design their own course of study but instead look for programs that align with their values and address the needs and interests of each kid. There are already dozens of excellent online programs, some of which are asynchronous (self-paced by the student) and some of which are synchronous (led by a teacher via Zoom with small groups of students). And education innovators are adding even more high-quality content online every day.
The Comptroller needs to allow a wide range of online providers and establish a simple and streamlined process for those providers to qualify for the ESA. Online programs are not part of the accreditation process specified in a different part of the bill, but explicitly the responsibility of the Comptroller to establish by rule.
The Texas Legislature handed the Comptroller a blank sheet of paper and said, “Write the rules as you see fit.”
However, the Comptroller and his office lack institutional experience in reviewing and approving educational programs. So he’ll need to seek outside help.
Accordingly, the Comptroller should by rule create an advisory commission to expeditiously review and submit for his approval online providers for inclusion in the ESA program. In addition, he should establish by rule strict conflict-of-interest guidelines for serving on that commission to prevent anti-competitive forces from using it to favor or protect existing providers (both online and offline).
2. Clarify by Rule That Parents Can Purchase Textbooks and Instructional Materials Without the Approval of a School.
Sec. 29.359 contains a list of approved expenses that can be paid with ESA funds. Subsection (a)(2) defines one such expense:
the purchase of textbooks or other instructional materials or uniforms required by a private school, higher education provider, or course in which the child is enrolled, including purchases made through a third-party vendor of educational products;PCE and homeschool families both need to buy books and instructional materials. But the language above is ambiguous: does the phrase “required by a private school, higher education provider, or course in which the child is enrolled” apply to “uniforms” or “textbooks or other instructional materials or uniforms”? If I need to buy poster board or printer paper for a project my kid is doing, do I need to get that purchase approved by a school? Do I need to enroll my kid in a private school just to buy a calculus textbook with ESA funds?
It might make sense for uniforms to be specified by a school. And schools can already include textbooks and instructional materials, bundling their cost into tuition and fees already allowable under this section. So why prohibit parents from buying books and school supplies directly? It would dramatically limit the flexibility and attractiveness of ESAs to both homeschool and PCE families.
There is, of course, a compliance question here. What is to keep parents from buying, say, a dune buggy and calling it an “instructional material”?2 But the compliance challenge is the state’s to solve, not parents. There are no reimbursements allowed in the Texas ESA program, so the state is going to have to create a system to adjudicate purchases anyway. Why further constrain and complicate this system by inserting a school in the middle of every transaction?
The Comptroller should issue a rule clarifying that textbooks and instructional materials may be purchased using ESA funds without requiring approval from a school.
3. Fully Fund ESAs for Children Who Enroll in an Online Course.
Sec. 29.361(b-1) creates a limit on ESA funds available to “home-schooled students”:
Notwithstanding Subsection (a), a participating child who is a home-schooled student, as defined by Section 29.916(a)(1), may not receive transfers under the program to the child’s account under Subsection (a) in an amount that exceeds $2,000 for a school year.As mentioned above and in my previous post, this section refers to a definition of a “home-schooled student” in the Texas Education Code. But this definition does not apply to the many families who engage in PCE. While those families may informally refer to themselves as homeschoolers, they do not in fact fit the legal definition, particularly when they have a child enrolled in an online course of study. This point is especially important given that Sec. 29.359(a)(1) clearly states that the ESA should pay for:
(1)tuition and fees for:
(A) a private school;
(B) a higher education provider;
(C) an online educational course or program; or
(D) a program that provides training for an industry-based credential approved by the agency;It seems clear to me from these sections that if you enroll your child in an online course, they should be treated the same as a kid who enrolls in a private school, community college, or vocational program. In fact, the online kids do not meet the legal definition of a “home-school student” because they’re not a “student who predominantly receives instruction…that is provided by the parent.” Consequently, a child enrolled in an online program should be entitled to the full amount of the ESA rather than the reduced “home-school” amount. Providing this funding level is critical to unlock the full potential of PCE.
The Comptroller should issue a rule making it clear that any student who enrolls in an online program (which is approved by him as described above) is not a “home-schooled student” under Sec. 29.361(b-1) and is therefore entitled to the full ESA amount called for under Sec. 29.361(a).
These three critical rules can unlock the potential for PCE.
So let’s say that happens. What are the implications? Will things really change? Or, to restate the title of this post in Jeopardy form:
Will SB2 really reform education and restore the family?
Let’s take these questions one at a time.
ESA Powered PCE Can Reform Education by Reducing Its Scale
I have maintained for years (and written about before) that education is in crisis because policymakers and educators have been trying to operate at a scale far too large for human beings to manage. Large scale organizations by their very nature create routinized, analytical, dehumanized environments that are ineffective at supporting the cognitive development of individual children and lousy places to work for adults.
By shifting resource and decision-making control away from large, centralized, state entities to families – the core design goal of all ESA programs – the scale of education will naturally shrink. Megaschools will be replaced by microschools as families migrate toward smaller, bespoke communities of learning. That’s one of the important effects of Parent-Curated Education.
This shift will also have a profound impact on Texas teachers, as many will leave large-scale institutions and practice their craft in small-scale settings. They will love having the freedom to work directly with parents and teach as they see fit without being dictated to by policymakers in Austin and local administrators.
Not all teachers will embrace this new model, and those who don’t will continue to work in schools. But for almost all teachers, ESAs will be liberating; even those teachers who stay in the current system will gain influence since they, like families, will have new options if they’re unsatisfied with their personal situation.
That two-fold liberation – liberating parents and teachers – can reform education in a lasting and natural way: from the bottom up.
ESA Powered PCE Can Restore the Family by Allowing More Women to Be the Homemaker Mom They Want to Be
Many women who want to be homemakers feel trapped by the dominant working mom social imaginary. Of course, that’s not every woman, but in our current system millions of women feel compelled to enter the workforce when they’d rather be at home with their kids.
Of course, working moms can still prioritize their family over work. Nowhere is it written that working moms have to put work ahead of their kids. And it appears that most working moms actually do prioritize their kids, as being a mom is an essential part of their identity. But they still want a career, as that is also part of their identity. These women strive to constantly balance between the two poles of their identity and many find a way to make it work.
But if in your heart you’re a homemaker mom, you think:
This “balance” does not work for me. Look, I’m unhappy because I’m going to work when I feel like I should be at home. It’s that simple. I’m not saying that other women are wrong to want a career – many do, and I’m happy for them – but I don’t care about my job the same way they do. Being at home with my kids is where I want to be, and the demands of my job often clash with this desire. And to be honest, this internal conflict makes me stressed out and unhappy a lot of the time, both at work and at home.
Homemaker moms stuck in the working mom social imaginary would like to quit, but the perceived gap between where they are and where they want to be feels too wide. And it turns out that the problem is not work-life balance (which is about “what I do”), but a conflict between social imaginaries of motherhood (which is about “who I am”).
ESAs may not eliminate this gap, but they can narrow it enough to allow thousands of moms to quit full-time work and become homemakers. Armed with an education trust fund for their kids, the economic incentives for low-income, working-class, and middle-class moms will change. At the margin, ESAs will encourage many two-income households with a wannabe homemaker mom to take the plunge (or sustain the plunge they’ve already taken) to be a one-income household with gig work or side hustles.
Viewed through a macroeconomic lens, these shifts could have a huge impact. As more women shift from working mom to homemaker mom, the supply of labor will decrease and wage rates will increase.3 GDP may fall, but productivity is likely to increase. Unemployment will fall as workforce participation falls. Of course, how this all plays out at the macro level is hard to predict. As I said in the first post of this series, the world is immense and unfathomably complex.
But at the micro level, a surge of homemaker moms out of the job market could re-invigorate many families. There’s an old Texas saying,
If Momma’s not happy, ain’t nobody happy.
People who are not living out their calling are generally unhappy, and this unhappiness has a profound impact on marriage and family life.
And it’s not just economics; as the working mom social imaginary pulled wannabe homemaker moms into the workplace, governments have intruded more and more into the vacuum this created in family life, gradually supplanting many roles and responsibilities that traditionally belonged to parents.
Just one example: the most basic responsibility of a parent is to feed their child. Feeding a baby is literally the first thing mom does after birth. But today we have largely transferred the responsibility to feed children from parents to the state. As kids get more and more obese, parents understandably blame the state and feel helpless to do anything about it.
This dependency is great for the political class. But it warps their view of reality and how people want to live their lives. For instance, after hearing a mom complain about the unhealthy food fed to her kids at school, I once heard a lawmaker tell her that if she didn’t like it she should just run for school board.
That is nuts.
Restoring families starts by putting parents back in charge. Yes, some will struggle with this duty at first, as they rebuild parental “muscles” that have atrophied due to inactivity and neglect. And, yes, there are true pathologies (e.g. the crackhead mom) that will still need to be addressed with community support and government intervention.
But parents still love and know their children more than any bureaucrat possibly could. By giving those parents a trust fund to administer for the purpose of developing their kids capabilities, homemaker moms will find happiness and purpose that is better aligned with their personal vocation and identity.
And making those mommas happy again will restore their families in a natural and lasting way: from the inside out.
If SB2 really reforms education and restores the family as I describe above, what I said in my initial post would indeed be true:
SB2 would be the most consequential bill ever passed in the State of Texas.
But I could be wrong. Maybe reform and restoration are theoretically possible, but there’s no practical way to get there from here.
So as I said in the first post, maybe this is just science fiction.
Like artificial intelligence4, or traveling to Mars.
I warned you in earlier posts that as an engineer, I love TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms). I’m trying to control myself. I really am. Please show me mercy.
This actually happened in Arizona. A family purchased a dune buggy and submitted a reimbursement request to the state. That request was denied, but seriously: a dune buggy? As my kids would say, “Bruh.” This sort of thing is why reimbursements are a bad idea, as I’ve posted about previously.
Of course, AI could offset wage increases by lowering demand for labor, but to the extent that is true, AI will make the attractiveness of leaving the workforce to become a homemaker increase because falling wage rates lower the financial benefits of being a working mom.
Thanks to ChatGPT, Grok, Perplexity, and Gemini for support of these posts.