Vouchers Are Woke: Go Woke, Go Broke

State Rep. Glenn Rogers

Concerned parents across Texas and across our nation have taken great interest in the threats social media platforms pose to our children's developing minds. We have watched billionaire social media CEOs get grilled on Capitol Hill in congressional hearings as Americans demand action to protect our kids. We know platforms like TikTok use algorithms to target young people, sending them content that is not age appropriate, we know it spews radical gender ideology to millions of our kids, and we know how it over-sexualizes young women; TikTok, Instagram, Facebook have all been busted for these outrageous acts. Dents in profits have followed for these and many other woke corporations. As they say, “Go woke, go broke.”

Concerned citizens paying attention have noticed the elite donor class manipulate election after election in this country; they leverage their immense wealth to sway votes by manipulating media platforms. The majority of voters would likely agree that the globalist billionaires that spend millions of dollars on political campaigns do not share the same values, concerns, or ideals with the majority of Americans.

Billionaire oligarchs are always in the market for a political puppet. Unfortunately, in Texas there is no limit on how much money an individual can donate to a candidate for state office. This election cycle, Governor Greg Abbott announced that he received the largest single campaign contribution in Texas history — $6 million from Jeff Yass. Yass gave Abbott an additional $4 million a few months later, gave Lt. Governor Dan Patrick $400,000, and gave the AFC (deceivingly called the American Federation for Children) Victory Fund’s Texas committee $5.7 million. So, who is Yass?

Yass is a Pennsylvanian billionaire who owns around a 30% stake of ByteDance, the TikTok parent company. He also is a big financier of charter/private schools. As an education vendor, he can profit off voucher programs in several states. It appears his campaign contributions in Texas, and future potential business interests, are correlated with the push by Abbott for school vouchers.

After Arizona passed their voucher program in 2022, the AFC, largely funded by Yass and the Devos family, began to market vouchers to undocumented immigrants. In their Spanish ad, they explained that citizenship status would not be a barrier to enroll for vouchers. Luring illegal immigrants across the border is a typical globalist tactic, and school vouchers is Yass’s way of playing the globalist game in an attempt to line his own pockets. The State of Arizona is now facing a deficit budget as the cost of their school voucher program is millions of more dollars than was projected. The official estimate for fiscal year 2024 was $65 million while the true cost was $332 million. Their legislature is now struggling to resolve a major budget crisis. “Go woke, go broke.”

Costly, unnecessary welfare programs are always a burden on the taxpayers. School vouchers across the country have largely been granted to parents who already could afford to, and did, send their children to private schools, thus making vouchers a subsidy for the wealthy. As Republicans, we believe in limited government and fiscal sensibility. We do not believe in unnecessary welfare programs that result in increased government spending. “Go woke, go broke.”

Conservatives believe in originalism, that is to value the Constitution and its authors’ original intentions. The Texas Constitution, every version since 1836 in fact, has required the legislature to ensure a system of public education. The billionaire globalist agenda wants to replace public schools with a completely privatized system of education; vouchers are the first step in the larger scheme. This would require a major progressive amendment to the Texas Constitution, erasing a fundamental and original clause of the sacred document. Altering the original meaning and intent of the Constitution is woke and would open the door for leftists trying to upend other core sections of the document. “Go woke, go broke.”

We don’t trust Yass’s TikTok on our children’s phones, so why should we trust him with our children’s education? If he lets woke ideology infect our children via social media, why wouldn’t he let woke indoctrination into private education? Quite frankly, Texans should be offended that Governor Abbott would openly brag about receiving the single largest campaign contribution from an out-of-state globalist who is pushing values contrary to the ideals of Texans.

Texans held the line against the globalist voucher scheme during the last legislative session. It is vital that every Texas parent stands up for their children to protect them from the leftist agenda that is secretly attached to “school choice.” If Texas adopts school vouchers, our children will be in trouble, our border crisis will worsen, and our budget will be ruined. Texas should take heed of the clear warning: “Go woke, go broke.”

Glenn Rogers is the state representative for Texas House District 60, which includes Parker County.