SB 2252 is projected to have a significant fiscal impact, with an estimated cost of approximately $581.3 million to General Revenue-related funds for the 2026–2027 biennium. Over a five-year period, this cost is expected to increase annually, reaching nearly $464.4 million in FY 2030, driven primarily by new education program mandates and changes to Foundation School Program (FSP) funding formulas.

The bulk of the expenses are attributed to expanded literacy and numeracy programs for students in kindergarten through third grade, new teacher training academies, and parent engagement initiatives. Key cost drivers include stipends and training costs for educator participation in reading and math intervention academies, development and deployment of diagnostic and intervention tools, and expanded grants for tutoring services. Notably, the bill mandates that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) provide free or low-cost reading intervention products and adaptive vocabulary assessments, as well as administer planning grants for schools implementing additional instructional days.

Foundation School Program adjustments also play a central role. These include new entitlements such as the Early Literacy Intervention Allotment ($250 per eligible student), the Third Grade Supplementary Support Grant ($750 per student), and additional ADA-based funding incentives for schools that expand instructional time. To offset some of these increases, the bill includes clawbacks in future years (e.g., five-year reductions for schools receiving parental engagement allotments), but these only partially mitigate the up-front spending. Additionally, the legislation will require the hiring of 24 new full-time employees at TEA and result in substantial IT system modifications, estimated at $3.6 million in the first two years alone.

At the local level, school districts and charter schools will face increased operational costs tied to implementation requirements—such as administering new diagnostic tools, providing literacy interventions, and supporting teacher training—though they are expected to receive offsetting state funding through the revised FSP formulas. Overall, while the bill aims to improve educational outcomes, it introduces substantial and sustained costs to both state and local education budgets.

SB 2252 represents a sweeping expansion of Texas’s early childhood education infrastructure and related funding mechanisms. The bill proposes a broad array of new mandates, including statewide screening tools for literacy and numeracy, required teacher training academies, parental support programs, third-grade tutoring grants, and changes to Foundation School Program (FSP) funding formulas. While these measures are framed as strategies to improve kindergarten readiness and long-term academic success, the fiscal implications and structural approach of the bill raise serious concerns for proponents of limited, accountable, and efficient government.

At the core of this concern is the bill’s lack of fiscal restraint. According to the Legislative Budget Board, SB 2252 is projected to cost Texas taxpayers over $581 million during the 2026–27 biennium, with costs escalating to more than $464 million annually by 2030. These expenditures would create permanent entitlement streams without structural mechanisms to ensure cost-effectiveness or accountability. Instead of rewarding efficiency or outcomes, the bill proposes top-down, state-managed solutions that risk further bloating the public education bureaucracy—especially within the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and local school district administrations.

The bill also fails to reckon with decades of underperformance and inefficiency in the public education system, where growing budgets have not consistently translated into improved student outcomes. Rather than addressing systemic inefficiencies—such as the disproportionate growth of non-instructional staff or redundant administrative structures—SB 2252 layers on new mandates and spending commitments. For example, its training academies for teachers and administrators, while well-intentioned, are fully state-directed and offer no meaningful innovation or market competition. Moreover, the “planning grants,” stipends, and additional instructional day incentives are all routed through existing district structures, providing no assurance that funds will be used effectively or that results will follow.

Even potentially promising components—such as the parental grant for third-grade tutoring—come with complicated clawback provisions that reduce a district’s future entitlement funding. This kind of policy design not only complicates district planning but creates a circular and inefficient financial mechanism that still leaves the burden on the state while centralizing control over implementation and evaluation.

While the bill provides some gestures toward parental involvement and student-level accountability, they are overshadowed by its massive new funding commitments, reliance on centralized administration, and lack of performance triggers or reform metrics. There is little in the bill to indicate that its programs would drive measurable improvement in outcomes or that the money would be better spent than current allocations. Instead, it further entrenches a system that has not demonstrated it can be trusted with increased funding.

For these reasons, Texas Policy Research recommends that lawmakers vote NO on SB 2252. Until the public education system demonstrates that it can manage existing resources efficiently, it should not be rewarded with additional permanent appropriations. Any effort to improve early education outcomes should begin with structural reforms, incentives for performance and efficiency, and market-based innovations—not costly and bureaucratic expansions with little accountability.

• Individual Liberty: The bill provides limited recognition of parental rights by including opt-out provisions for certain reading interventions and assessment instruments. This allows parents to exercise some discretion in their child’s educational path, which supports individual liberty in theory. However, these provisions are narrow and procedural. The broader thrust of the bill—mandating screenings, interventions, and training across the state—effectively reduces the ability of families and local educators to make choices aligned with their values or educational philosophies. By embedding state-prescribed educational programming into the early years of schooling and expanding state authority over what interventions must be delivered and how, the bill subtly shifts decision-making power away from families and educators toward the centralized bureaucracy.
• Personal Responsibility: The bill promotes personal responsibility to a limited extent by encouraging parental involvement through early childhood support programs. These voluntary programs are designed to equip parents with tools and resources to help prepare their children for school, which can foster a sense of ownership over a child’s development and education. However, the state-driven nature of these programs—selected, administered, and evaluated by TEA—means that parental engagement is occurring within a state-defined framework, not through organic, community-driven solutions. True personal responsibility would be better served by bottom-up approaches that empower parents with more control over curriculum, assessments, or provider options.
• Free Enterprise: One of the most significant concerns is the bill’s lack of market flexibility. The bill expands government control over educational delivery mechanisms, including interventions, instructional materials, and tutoring services. While it provides grant-based funding for some parent-directed tutoring, the providers must be TEA-approved, limiting the competitive landscape and favoring centralized vetting over open choice. It also mandates state-managed teacher academies rather than leveraging private-sector or nonprofit training options. This approach discourages innovation and competition, reinforcing a monopolistic public education model instead of supporting a diverse marketplace of educational services and solutions.
• Private Property Rights: The bill does not directly implicate property rights in the traditional sense (e.g., eminent domain or regulatory takings). However, it does expand regulatory burdens on charter schools and private child care providers that partner with school districts. For instance, entities providing pre-K services through public-private partnerships must meet expanded certification and reporting requirements and operate under public school regulatory conditions—even in privately run facilities. While these provisions don’t rise to the level of violating private property rights, they do represent creeping regulatory encroachment into private education delivery spaces.
• Limited Government: This is where the bill most clearly diverges from liberty principles. The bill significantly expands the role of the Texas Education Agency and state government in public education. It creates new mandates, permanent spending commitments, and state-managed systems for training, intervention, assessment, and even early childhood parental engagement. It also requires the hiring of 24 new state employees and projects hundreds of millions of dollars in recurring costs without tying this funding to structural reforms, outcome benchmarks, or spending caps. This centralization of authority and funding is antithetical to the principle of limited government, as it presumes that only the state can design and oversee effective educational interventions—despite evidence to the contrary from years of mismanaged education funds and unaccountable bureaucracies.

• HB 123 (Same As)