Dr. Donna Campbell is the Republican nominee (and likely winner in November) for Texas Senate District 25, which includes San Antonio’s North Side. She campaigned on school choice. She recently sat down with the Texas Tribune for a video interview. “Donna Campbell: The TT Interview”, Reeve Hamilton, Texas Tribune, September 5, 2012. One topic was education.
TT: Do you support school vouchers?
Campbell: The big thing is we need to introduce competition to education. So let’s look to everything. Vouchers would help competition in that parents would have a choice of financial support.
If a child is locked into a ZIP code, for instance, if it’s a minority in an urban school locked into a ZIP code, and if they have some funding personally where the parent can choose, who is going to benefit? The child.
But not just the child. Parents get to choose, and as more schools would open up — private schools, charter schools, parochial schools — that now, they know some funding would be available, then there’s more opportunity for our teachers. We’ve got great teachers.
Vouchers is a way to at least open the door, start the conversation, get a discussion about competition. There’s also taxpayer savings grant that is a form — kind of a modification — that I think is equally good to take a look at.
