The Texas Constitution doesn’t leave much wiggle room when it comes to schools. It says a “general diffusion of knowledge” is essential, and then it gets right to the point: it is the duty of the Legislature to provide for an efficient system of public free schools. That’s been the deal since 1876, and it doesn’t say anything about where you live.
I kept thinking about that this weekend after the Los Angeles Chargers drafted a kid from my hometown of Spearman.
If you know Spearman, it looks like a lot of rural Texas—about 3,000 people at the top of the Panhandle, one school district, one high school, one football field. That’s where Brenen Thompson learned to run a 4.26 forty, the fastest time at this year’s NFL Combine. The football story is impressive, but it’s not the point.
The point is how he got there.
In a town like Spearman, there isn’t a menu of options. There’s one system that carries the load: the public school.
There isn’t a private campus down the road. There isn’t another system waiting if something doesn’t fit. There is one school, and it is expected to meet the needs of every student who walks through the door.
And in rural Texas, that school does more than educate. It functions as the center of the community, but more importantly, it is the only institution responsible for preparing the next generation.
That’s not unique to Spearman. It’s the reality for close to a million rural Texas students, many of whom do not have alternative options. They can’t transfer across town or opt into something else if the system falls short. What they have is the public school in front of them.
So when we talk about education policy in rural Texas, we are not talking about expanding choice in any meaningful sense. We are talking about whether the one system these students rely on is strong enough to do its job.
“Good enough” doesn’t work in that environment.
That system has to be capable of serving every student in the building—not just the ones who stand out or the ones who will leave, but the ones who will stay and build their lives in these communities.
Because while we are so proud of Brenen Thompson, his story is the exception, not the model.
Most students aren’t headed to the NFL. They’re headed into the workforce, into local businesses, into classrooms as future teachers, into hospitals, farms, and small-town main streets. Their outcomes depend on the same classrooms, the same teachers, and the same system that produced a top draft pick.
If that system is strong, they have opportunity. If it’s not, they don’t.
That is the responsibility the state accepted when it put public education into the Constitution—not to create pathways for a few, but to ensure a foundation for all.
And that’s why this moment matters.
Because at the same time a kid from Spearman is stepping onto an NFL field, the state of Texas is preparing to roll out a $1 billion private school voucher program.
Supporters call it choice. In rural Texas, that’s not what it is.
There are no private schools waiting to take those dollars. There is no network of education options to take on our students. In most of these communities, a voucher doesn’t open a door—it simply shifts public dollars out of the only school they attend.
And when you pull resources out of a system that has no backup, you’re not creating competition. You’re creating strain.
Fewer teachers. Fewer programs. Fewer opportunities for the majority of kids who will still be sitting in those same classrooms.
That’s the part of this conversation that rural Texas can’t afford to ignore.
Because the kids in those schools don’t get a second system if the first one weakens. They don’t get a workaround or a quiet exit. They get what’s left.
Back home, there will be students on that same field this fall, running the same drills and figuring out what comes next. What the state owes them is not complicated. It owes them a public school system strong enough to carry them forward—every one of them, not just the few who are able to break through.
That’s the deal.
Source: Freepik.com