Members of the House Committee on Public Education clashed over the details of a school voucher bill — a topic that for the past couple of years has driven a wedge in the Republican Party and prompted Gov. Greg Abbott last year to help unseat incumbent Republican lawmakers who stood against a "school choice" proposal in 2023.

The spotlight is on the Texas House of Representatives, where an education committee took up and is expected to pass its priority legislation allocating taxpayer money toward private education. A state budget analysis found that taxpayers could be spending more than $10 billion on the plan by the end of the decade.