Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows said Thursday that creating a private-school voucher program in Texas is “the defining issue” of the legislative session, reassuring a crowd of conservative supporters gathered in Austin that their long wait for school choice was over.

School choice has already passed in the Senate, but now two bills that go hand in hand with school choice have been filed in the House on February 20th.

In a surprising turn, major school choice proponents are enthusiastically cheering the Texas House for proposed legislation on Education Savings Accounts. On Thursday, the House rolled out HB 3, which contains a “strong school choice” provision that “builds on” the pre-existing Senate bill,