School Funding
John Cornyn (R)
Cornyn has voted for Title I and IDEA appropriations every cycle and supports increased Pell Grant funding while opposing the Biden-era student-loan-forgiveness executive orders. He co-sponsored expanded 529 plans for K-12 expenses, federal school-choice tax credits, and the Educational Choice for Children Act, and supports the Trump administration's school-choice priority though he has not signed onto the most aggressive federal preemption proposals. He has opposed eliminating the Department of Education while supporting significant restructuring of its civil-rights and student-loan functions. He has championed full IDEA funding — an unfulfilled 40% federal commitment dating to 1975 — and supports the Teacher Quality Partnership program. He treats school-funding policy as primarily a state-level question, citing federalism limits.
James Talarico (D)
Talarico led the Texas House fight against Abbott's voucher program and his colleagues selected him to lead that opposition. His Senate priorities include rejecting 'voucher scams being pushed by billionaire mega-donors that defund public schools to subsidize private education for the wealthiest Americans.' He wants universal Pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds, expanded Head Start, the Teacher Quality Partnership and TEACH grants, and protection of federal special-education oversight. In Austin he helped invest $6.5B into public schools for teacher pay, literacy and math initiatives, and capped Pre-K class sizes at 22 students. He has personally targeted billionaires Tim Dunn, Farris Wilks, and Betsy DeVos as the financial backers of the voucher movement.
Sources
- Sen. John Cornyn, official Senate website and 2026 re-election campaign issues page, accessed May 2026 (cornyn.senate.gov; johncornyn.com). (full list)
- Talarico for Texas, official campaign issues pages (taxes, education, healthcare, immigration, social media/AI, freedom-family-faith, public-safety-justice, corruption-democracy, labor-business), accessed May 2026. (full list)
- Gabby Birenbaum, 'On the issues: A Q&A with Ken Paxton and John Cornyn,' Texas Tribune, April 20, 2026; companion Cornyn interview, April 2026. (full list)