Families began applying Wednesday forTexas' new $1 billion school voucher program, which flows taxpayer dollars to families wishing to send their children to schools outside of the public education system. The program is accepting applications through March 17 for the 2026-27 school year, and will notify families if they've qualified for funds as early as April.
Signed intostate lawjust last year, aspects of the program are still being developed even though the application period for next school year is already underway — with more than 20,000 students applying by midday Wednesday, according to acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock, whose office is administering the program.
Over the last couple months, concerns have emerged over the program's lack of transparency and accountability regarding how participating private schools may be audited, what kinds of schools will be admitted to the program, and how students with disabilities will ensure private schools comply with their Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs.
Most participating families will receive roughly $10,000 per student each year, or 85% of a public school student’s allotment from the state. Homeschooled students are eligible for $2,000 annually, and students with disabilities could receive up to $30,000, depending on their needs.
The Texas Education Freedom Accounts programis open to all students, but if applications exceed available funding, which the program's leaders expect, the state will use a lottery system to determine which families receive vouchers. Priority will first go to students with disabilities from families earning up to about $240,000 per year for a family of four. Next in line are students from households earning roughly twice the federal poverty level, or about $60,000 for a family of four, followed by families earning between $60,000 and $240,000. Families earning more than that would have the lowest priority.
Applications can be completed on a smartphone and are expected to take 10-15 minutes, according to Travis Pillow, a newly hired spokesperson for the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, which oversees the program. Pillow previously worked on similar voucher initiatives in Florida.
"We want to encourage families to take your time to apply," Pillow said. "This program is not first come, first served and as long as you apply by 11:59 p.m. Central time on March 17, all applications will be treated on a level playing field. Students with disabilities will be our top priority."
Questions about transparency
On Monday, the nonprofit Our Schools Our Democracy launched an initiative called the Texas Center for Voucher Transparency. The initiative includes a small staff of three and is funded by an anonymous angel investor, individual donations and federal grants. The group aims to fill an information gap by providing more frequent reports with credible information on how the program operates, who benefits and how it affects public schools and communities.
"The comptroller is not required to [publish a report] for five years, which could be potentially three legislative sessions where legislators have had an opportunity to raise the billion-dollar cap and expand the program without really having any data into whether or not it’s working," said Carrie Griffith, founder and executive director of Our Schools Our Democracy.
Griffith says her team hopes to publish a map with the private schools that are admitted to participate in the program, along with conducting surveys, scrutinizing applications for private schools admitted to the voucher program and establishing an online reporting portal to collect complaints and concerns for the group to track trends over time.
Pillow saysSenate Bill 2, under which the voucher program was passed by Texas lawmakers, requires audits of the comptroller's office and its contractors.
"There’s a requirement that private schools and other education service providers will have to have a third-party audit or financial statement on file that can be updated annually," Pillow said. "So we’re keeping an eye on how the dollars are flowing and making sure that everybody’s following the law."
On Tuesday, leaders from the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, the official name for the voucher initiative, held a webinar to discuss the program and address concerns and questions regarding how students with disabilities would be ensured accommodations by private schools.
During the question-and-answer portion, Lindsey Baerwald, the marketing and outreach manager for the comptroller's office, said an auditing checklist for private schools was "being determined" and added that she didn't believe every private school would be audited every year, while noting they do have to "submit documents."
Mark Domel, senior counsel at the Texas comptroller's office, said, "If there is a situation where you believe you’re not getting services that have been paid for, then please contact us and we’ll investigate and take any corrective action."
Griffith said it was the first time she'd heard the office make that kind of commitment.
"I mean, private schools who supported the voucher were very insistent that they didn’t want government overreach into their schools," Griffith said. "So investigating parent complaints ... it’s the first time I’ve heard that so I’ll be interested to see how that unfolds."
Implications for special education students
Concerns about transparency and auditing of the voucher program are particularly high when it comes to the program’s ability to adequately service students with special needs, according to Sabrina Gonzalez Saucedo, director of public policy and advocacy for the Arc of Texas, a policy and advocacy organization for Texans with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Arc fought against SB 2 and other voucher program legislation because of the implications for students with disabilities.
"Private schools [are] not required to provide any of the services or accommodations that are listed in the individualized education program for that student," Saucedo said. "Without giving parents a clear picture of what their children will receive in a public school setting and will not receive in a private school setting, well, that’s really important information to share with parents."
Families seeking vouchers for special education needs will need to obtain an IEP. As it stands now, public school districts are the primary agency for conducting assessments and evaluations for IEPs.
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) releasedguidance for families with special education studentsto navigate the voucher program last week. For prioritization, families may provide an out-of-date IEP. But to receive additional funding, parents will need to provide an IEP on file with the TEA that is from one of the last three school years.
Saucedo said school districts may be bombarded with requests for new special education evaluations or updates to lapsed IEPs.
"This was something that we definitely saw coming," Saucedo said. "The reality is that special education staff and administrators, when faced with a wave of new requests, [will experience] delays and frustration."
Which private schools can participate?
The comptroller's office has not released any specific guidance for how it is vetting and determining eligibility for private schools to participate in the voucher program.
Hancock, the acting Texas comptroller,asked Attorney General Ken Paxton for guidancein December over concerns that some applicant schools hosted events with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, and that others were accredited by Cognia, a private school accreditor that state officials allege has ties to the Chinese government. Gov. Greg Abbott in November declared CAIR to be a terrorist organization, promptingpushback and legal actionby the nationwide civil rights organization.
While more than 1,300 schools have been approved to enter the voucher program, Hancock has also stalled the admission of hundreds more.
On Jan. 24, Paxton issued an opinion, though not legally binding, supporting Hancock's concerns, but punted the responsibility to investigate schools and determine their eligibility back to the comptroller's office. Paxton added Texans deserve assurances that no taxpayer dollars will be used, directly or indirectly, to support institutions with ties to those groups.
"We appreciate the Attorney General's support of our full authority under state law to stop taxpayer dollars from being provided, directly or indirectly, to institutions tied to designated foreign terrorist organizations, criminal networks, or adversarial foreign governments," Hancock wrote in a statement posted to Facebook. "This opinion makes clear that Texas will not tolerate taxpayer funds being diverted to bad actors."
Abbott escalated tensions with CAIR on Jan. 28, demanding the attorney general's officeuse existing tools to eliminate CAIR's operationsin Texas.
CAIR Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell called Paxton's response "evasive" and "confusing."
"There’s a clear, obvious answer to Comptroller Hancock’s question: he cannot bar private schools from the program because of their real or imagined interactions with CAIR-Texas, especially since Mr. Paxton has sworn to a federal court that the governor’s unconstitutional proclamation targeting CAIR does not apply to any of its CAIR-Texas chapters," Mitchell said. "Comptroller Hancock must now permit private Muslim schools to participate in the program without facing any discrimination, heightened scrutiny or further delays in the application process. Nothing in the law permits Mr. Hancock to scrutinize private Muslim schools because of their religious identity, nor can Mr. Hancock punish them if they once hosted an educational lecture from a civil rights organization that Greg Abbott happens to dislike."
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When asked at a Wednesday event in Houston about the comptroller limiting the admission of Islamic private schools to the program, Abbott said the decision was the comptroller's office's to make.
Pressed by a reporter if he could imagine any Islamic private schools being admitted to the voucher program, Abbott said, "I don't talk about imaginings."
Pillow confirmed toHouston Public Mediathat since questions first arose about delays in admitting private schools accredited by Cognia, voucher program administrators have now begun admitting some of those schools. He did not directly address questions about whether these schools had undergone further scrutiny.
"We are focused on delivering the assurances that we are not allowing taxpayer dollars to go to any school that might run afoul of the issues that were raised in the Attorney General’s opinion," Pillow said. "We also want to make sure that every participating school is in full compliance with all the applicable laws."
Erin Baumgartner with the Houston Education Research Consortium says the eligibility expectations aren't very clear for how private schools may qualify.
"There are a handful of things that are very clear, like be accredited by a particular private school association, or someone else recognized by TEA, be open for at least two years and administer a test that’s nationally recognized," Baumgartner said. "So those are a pretty small list of requirements and so to the extent that the folks at the comptroller’s office are using other tools to evaluate what qualifies a school or not is, I think, a question that exists for a lot of people."
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