When the voucher scheme was signed into law last year, Governor Greg Abbott proclaimed he had delivered “education freedom to every Texas family.” But this billion-dollar giveaway, which opens to parents on February 4, has already enrolled dozens of private schools that openly discriminate against Texas families.
Approved applicants to private schools will receive $10,474 for the 2026-2027 school year; students with special needs may receive up to $30,000, and homeschool students will receive $2,000. Note that the $30,000 private schools will receive through students with special needs includes no state or federal requirements that the schools actually provide the services students need.
If demand for the voucher exceeds available funding, then applications of students with disabilities and lower incomes are supposed to be prioritized. However, recent news reports show that private schools set their own enrollment deadlines which likely precede the voucher payment distribution in July. The Texas Observer found that approximately a third of private schools enrolled in the program have current tuition amounts that exceed the $10,474. Additional fees are also charged at private schools, including registration, testing, sports, supplies, field trips, or uniforms. This means that many parents would have to front load thousands in tuition and fees, an option out of reach for lower income families. “Most, if not all of those seats, especially at the most competitive private schools, will be taken by those families with the means, those families already enrolling their children in private schools,” said University of Texas education professor, David DeMatthews. So much for “education freedom to every Texas family.”
Discrimination By The Numbers
The Observer researched all 291 schools selected by the state that offer education beyond the kindergarten level. After interviewing school leaders and researching school websites and handbooks, they found:
- More than 90% are affiliated with or owned by a religious or faith-based group,
- More than 100 of those schools require or prioritize for admission students of the same faith, and
- 60 have a written policy that discriminates against LGBTQ+ students.
In addition to the financial, religious, and LGBTQ+ discrimination, the locations of the enrolled schools show that rural Texas families will also be left out. About 70% of enrolled schools are concentrated in the Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin urban areas . Rural Texas families will have very few options when over 180 of Texas’ 254 counties have no elementary, junior, or senior high schools enrolled so far.
Of the participating schools included in the Observer’s analysis, 268 are religious—with 176 Catholic, 91 Protestant, and one Jewish. Only 23 are secular. And most private schools currently enrolled lack special education services even though the voucher program claims to prioritize students with special needs. Less than a dozen schools stated that special education services are available to students.
The billion-dollar voucher program could grow past $6 billion in the next biennium, long before the legislature receives a required five-year report. Texas is about to launch the largest voucher program in the country and it will surely invite the same grifting we have witnessed in other states that had better oversight. Voucher scams are so prevalent that our friends at the Network for Public Education have a website dedicated to them and we fully expect to see some Texas examples soon. An investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune has already found more than 60 instances of nepotism, self-dealing and conflicts of interest among 27 private schools that likely would have violated state laws had the schools been public. A new billion-dollar voucher program with little transparency or accountability will only fuel the existing self-dealing issues within private schools.
The next phase of the fight against vouchers is now. Our Schools Our Democracy is launching a statewide week of action from February 2 to February 6 – the same week that Texas is scheduled to open voucher applications. Take action today and join the call to receive timely updates with new advocacy resources to put transparency first, protect taxpayer dollars, and ensure fairness for public school students.