GOP lawmakers aim to reshape education with Texas Parental Bill of Rights

Glennda Hardin awoke before sunrise and drove an hour from Temple to the state Capitol, her prepared speech folded neatly in her handbag. Hardin, a 73-year-old retired teacher, had never done anything like this before, she said. But once she’d heard what Republican legislators had planned for the state’s education system, she knew she had to come speak her mind. 

All that money — meant for public schools like the ones she taught at for three decades — going to pay for private school tuition. “I really believe the future of our schools is at stake,” Hardin said. Her hands trembled in the back of a committee room Wednesday as she clutched the paper, waiting for her chance to testify as the minutes stretched to hours and one hour bled into the next.

Hardin was among hundreds of educators, parents, school officials and activists who came to sound off about a slate of bills that would fundamentally reshape the state’s education system in response to conservative grievances over the ways public schools address racism, history and LGBTQ inclusion.