AUSTIN, Texas – School choice opponents are making some outlandish claims in an attempt to kill new educational options proposed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, including a suggestion that school vouchers could be used to train ISIS terrorists.

League City Independent School District Technology Integration Specialist Rod Dunklee recently wrote in to The Daily News to decry Patrick’s proposed “$3.74 billion Obamacare-like education program” he alleges will lead to a system of corruption rife with “unscrupulous schemers.”

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Dunklee, whose livelihood depends on the unionized public school monopoly, alleges Patrick’s proposal to usher in education savings accounts or other forms of private school vouchers will decimate the public school system by diverting funds to other schools.

ESAs in other states allow parents of students in failing public schools to choose better educational options, such as private schools, homeschooling or other alternatives. Typically, the state deposits money earmarked for students into an account parents can use to help pay for private school, or other education expenses.

“Texas is lagging in school choice options,” Patrick told an audience at a Dallas Regional Chamber luncheon last fall, according to the Dallas Morning News. “I intend to fight for school choice session after session after session.”

Patrick explained that 239,517 Texas students are stuck in sub-par public schools, a situation that’s killing their chances for success and driving many to drop out.

“Kids have no hope, they have no job, they’re angry in the streets,” he said. “And they’ll stay angry in the streets because we’re not giving them the quality of education that all of us expect and deserve.”

ESAs and other school choice options create competition with public schools that drives all educational institutions – public and private – to strive for success to recruit students, he explained, and parents essentially hold schools accountable by deciding where to spend their child’s per-pupil allotment.

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Critics like Dunklee, however, realize that creating competition with public schools jeopardizes the public school monopoly they depend on, and are doing their best to smear Patrick’s proposal with misleading analogies and over-the-top scare tactics.

“How many will be duped by school choice scammers? Who fixes it when they choose a school like Trump University? Will the moms and dads of crack babies spend tax dollars wisely?” Dunklee questioned. “Under Dan’s plan, Texas becomes the most cost effective place for ISIS to train children.”

Dunklee also attempted to link Patrick’s plan to the Branch Davidians, an infamous Texas religious cult.

Regardless, at least some school choice proponents are setting the record straight by labeling Dunklee’s doomsday predictions for what they are – “dishonorable and dishonest.”

Officials with the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute countered the administrator’s claims with facts in a Daily News editorial Wednesday. Executive director John Colyandro and attorney Russell Withers pointed to a 2016 Harvard University study that shows “voucher recipients who attended private school are more likely to graduate from college.”

“Minority students in the group were 10 percent more likely to enroll in college than the control group (students who stayed in public schools) and 35 percent more likely to obtain a bachelor’s degree,” they wrote. “The Harvard study is but one among many that demonstrates positive results from choice programs, both to participants and the public schools they left.”

Suggesting otherwise, and injecting inflammatory claims into the debate, is “simply disingenuous,” they argued.

“By invoking Obamacare and arguing that school choice in Texas will create more Branch Davidians, the infamous death cult in Waco, Dunklee does a serious disservice to public debate,” Colyandro and Withers wrote. “Most conservatives and Republicans understand that school choice is about helping those students who are not served well by a one-size-fits-all model. It is simply impossible for traditional government schools to provide the best environment for over 5 million students.”