Texas School Choice Vouchers: Why Most Approved Kids Were Already in Private School or Homeschool
Last Tuesday, Marco came home from fourth grade with his hood up and a math worksheet crumpled in his backpack. He dropped it on the kitchen counter like it was evidence of something.
“I’m stupid,” he said.
He’s not. He can explain a video game mechanic in precise detail and remember a joke he heard two weeks ago. But that day his class had been given eighteen long-division problems, most of them word problems, and he had written down only his name.
I made toast, got him a glass of water, and looked at the tabs open on my laptop: public school email, a private school tour sign-up, and the Texas school-choice application. For a week I had been telling myself that maybe this was the answer. If the public school class was too crowded, if math moved too fast, if he kept coming home feeling small, perhaps an education savings account could buy him a smaller room, a quieter teacher, a different path.
Then a friend texted. Her two children had been homeschooled for three years. She had been approved for choice funds and planned to use them for curriculum, a science co-op, and speech therapy.
“I’m grateful,” she wrote, “but I already had this covered.”
That same afternoon, I read the number that has stuck with me since: seven in ten Texas children approved in the state’s $1 billion school-choice effort were already attending private school or being homeschooled. Only about three in ten were coming from public school.
I stood in the kitchen and looked at Marco’s worksheet. The program was sold as a lifeline for kids like him. The early numbers told a more complicated story.
This is not an argument that families who use the money are doing something wrong. If the state offers help with tuition, books, therapy, or learning materials, most parents will take it. I would. But the design of a program reveals what it is actually for. When most recipients have already made a non-public-school choice, the immediate effect is not primarily rescuing children from struggling public schools. It is subsidizing choices families were already making and building a larger market for private and home education.
A few days later, Marco’s teacher, Ms. Begay, met with me before school. She brought a stack of his work and a legal pad. She did not act defensive. She looked tired, the way teachers do when they have twenty-six other versions of this same meeting.
“Watch this,” she said, and read one of the math problems aloud to Marco.
He solved it.
“Now watch what happens when he has to read the directions himself,” she said.
He stared at the page, picked at his eraser, and shut down.
The problem was not simply “school.” It was specific: multiple-step directions, a crowded worksheet, independent work time after lunch, and no adult available to check his understanding in the first five minutes. That distinction matters. A voucher cannot solve a problem until you know what the problem is.
We agreed on two small changes. He would get a half-sheet with eight problems instead of the full page. The directions would be read aloud, and he could check in with the teacher or a classroom aide after trying the first two. At home, I started reading the first problem with him, then walking away. If he finished two, he could take a five-minute break before the next two.
None of that sounds glamorous. It worked better than I expected for three days, then poorly on Thursday. That is how school progress usually goes.
I still toured one private school. The halls were quiet. The fourth-grade classroom had sixteen desks. The admissions director was friendly and clearly proud of the school. But when I asked about learning support, she said they “tried to meet children where they were” but did not have a full-time interventionist. When I asked about cost, the tuition number was only the beginning: registration, technology, supplies, lunch, uniforms, field trips, and a parent association fee. When I asked how the state funds worked, she said families often paid first and requested reimbursement.
I also asked what would happen if Marco’s IEP services were needed. She paused and explained that the school could offer accommodations, but it did not operate like the public school’s special education system. That was honest, and it mattered. A public school’s legal obligations do not simply follow a child to a private campus. A family may gain smaller classes and lose the formal services their child depends on.
Walking back to the car, I thought about the phrase “school choice.” Choice requires three things: an actual seat, a way to pay the full cost, and a way to get there. Texas’s program helps with payment, but private schools still choose whom they admit. They may not have room for a child who needs reading intervention, gets anxious during long assignments, or has a disability that requires staff training. Transportation is often on the family. A scholarship approval letter is not the same as an enrollment contract.
For parents trying to figure this out, I would say do the boring work before changing schools. For one week, write down exactly when the trouble happens: subject, time of day, type of work, noise level, and what happened right before your child gave up. “He hates school” is too broad to act on. “He shuts down during independent math after lunch when there are three written directions” gives a teacher something to adjust.
Then send a short email: “Can we meet for twenty minutes? I want to look at his work samples and agree on two changes for the next two weeks.” Ask for a half-sheet, preprinted notes, permission to type answers, a seat away from distraction, or a check-in after the first problem. If your child has a disability affecting learning, ask in writing for a 504 or special education evaluation. Those processes can be frustrating, but they create a written plan.
If you tour a private school, ask the unglamorous questions: What is the total annual cost, not just tuition? Do you receive state funds directly, or do I pay and wait for reimbursement? Who teaches reading and math intervention? How often? What happens if my child is not accepted back next year? What transportation is available? May I see a sample schedule and the behavior policy? “We treat every child as an individual” is not an answer.
The policy question remains. If Texas wanted to help children leave low-performing public schools, the program could prioritize those applicants, fund new seats in neighborhoods without alternatives, cover transportation, and require participating private schools to report whom they admit and whom they ask to leave. If the goal is to help a broad group of parents pay for education outside the public system, that is a different program—and the seven-in-ten number suggests it may be closer to the truth.
Public schools still have to enroll Marco even if his test scores are low, his morning is rough, or his family cannot cover hidden fees. They are the system with the widest door. Diverting money can feel like freedom for some families, but it does not automatically create better options for the children who need the most.
Last night Marco sat at the kitchen table with his half-sheet. He complained, ate an apple, did eight problems, and asked to play outside. It was not a transformation. Today may be worse. The choice application is still open in my browser, and we may finish it. But I know now that approval would not guarantee a seat, a plan, or a teacher who understands what happens when he sees eighteen problems and stops.
The question for Texas is not whether parents want choices. We do. The question is what this program actually chooses when most of the money reaches children who were already outside the public school system—and what happens to the children still waiting for someone to read the first direction out loud.
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