80th Legislature: Autism Voucher Bill Is Dead
By Vince Leibowitz on Apr 24, 2007 in 80th Legislature ![[Post to Twitter]](/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter.png){kind=icon}
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SB 1000, the Autism voucher bill by Sen. Florence Shapiro (R-Plano) is dead this session.
Sources tell Capitol Annex that on Monday, Shapiro met with Senate Democrats and advised them she didn’t have the votes for passage or to bring the bill to the floor and was pulling it from the calender. Reportedly, 17 senators of both parties were against Shapiro’s bill and, had it passed in the Senate, the chances of it passing in the House were poor at best.
Most members of the Senate, in fact, are supporting another package of legislation geared toward helping children with Autism which includes bills by a coalition of Democratic senators. We’d intended to bring you links and some further analysis on these bills, but Texas Legislature Online seems down right now, so it will have to wait.
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The irony is, this was never a “Voucher bill” as it was consistent with Federal disability law that states parents should play a key role in placement decisions and public schools must contract with private providers when necessary to provide an appropriate education. SB 1000 was merely an essential device to enforce federal law since the TEA is boldly non-compliant, it was not creating new law. But due to all the compromises required to even attempt to bring it to a vote and try to do something good for the autism community, any sort of parental role in determining appropriate placement was removed from the bill and put back into the hands of the public schools who are already failing our children. So, certainly no argument can be made that it ended up a “voucher bill”, yet still it was squashed.
Makes you wonder who really is looking out for the needs of these children, doesn’t it?