What Is Texas’ $1 Billion School Choice Program Actually For? 7 in 10 Recipients Were Already Enrolled Privately
Last month, I sat on a crumb-dusted folding chair in my third grader’s east Austin elementary school library, folding neon book fair flyers after our monthly PTA meeting, when our principal dropped the number most of us hadn’t seen yet. Of the 41,000 Texas students who received awards through the state’s new 2024 school choice Education Savings Account (ESA) program, 70% were already enrolled in private school or registered as homeschoolers before they applied. The program’s $1 billion price tag made it the largest school choice expansion in the country last year, sold to voters as a lifeline for low-income working families trapped in underperforming public schools. But that first batch of numbers told a different story.
Mike, a construction foreman whose fourth-grade son Javi has dyslexia, leaned forward in his chair before she finished talking. He’d applied for the $8,000 annual ESA award back in March, he said, hoping to cover most of the tuition at a small private school for neurodivergent kids 20 minutes across town. Javi’s public school dyslexia program serves 22 kids with one part-time specialist, and he only gets two 30-minute small group sessions a week, instead of the daily practice his outside tutor recommended. Mike and his wife, a dental hygienist, make too much to qualify for the private school’s sliding-scale tuition, but not enough to cover $12,000 a year out of pocket. The ESA would have closed that gap. He got a denial email in May: funds were first-come, first-served, and the pot was empty by the time his income verification cleared. He’d missed the first week of applications because he was out of town on a commercial framing job, and couldn’t get his paperwork notarized until he got home.
A few seats over, Sarah nodded slowly. She homeschools her two boys, ages 8 and 10, and was at the meeting to coordinate the 4-H club that meets in our school’s gym once a week. She’d gotten two ESA awards, one for each kid, she said. She’d used the money to buy a new Singapore math curriculum and cover a year of co-op science lab fees. “I didn’t even know it was supposed to be for switching schools,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I saw a post in my homeschool Facebook group saying free money for school supplies, so I applied the first day. It took 20 minutes.”
After the meeting adjourned, I walked out to the potholed parking lot with Mike. He kicked a loose rock across the asphalt while he talked. He didn’t blame Sarah, he said. Any parent would take free money for their kid’s school costs if it was offered. But he’d spent months touring schools, filling out financial aid forms, and rearranging his work schedule for pickup, and walked away with nothing while families who’d already opted out got rebates for costs they were already paying.
That night, after I made boxed mac and cheese for my daughter Lila and walked her through her multiplication worksheet, I pulled up the Texas Education Agency’s ESA page on my laptop while she colored at the table. The fine print made the 70% number make sense. There’s no rule requiring families to use the money to leave public school, no priority for low-income current public school students or kids with disabilities who aren’t getting needed services. Applications open for a two-week window once a year, awards go to whoever submits a complete application first, and that’s it. Families who already had homeschool registration paperwork on file, who already held a private school acceptance letter, who were plugged into parent networks that shared the link the second it went live, got to the front of the line. Working parents like Mike, who couldn’t take time off to get paperwork notarized day one, who didn’t see a flyer because their public school didn’t promote a program that pulls funding from their budget, got locked out.
The $1 billion comes out of the state’s general K-12 education budget, the same pot that pays for public school special ed staff, new textbooks, and free after-school tutoring. For families navigating the system right now, there are small, concrete steps you can take regardless of whether you’re hoping for an ESA, staying in public school, or already homeschooling.
If you’re a public school parent whose kid needs extra support your district isn’t providing, don’t wait on a voucher waitlist to ask for help. Federal IDEA rules require public schools to cover private services or out-of-district placement if they can’t meet your child’s needs in-house. You don’t need a lawyer to request this: send a short email to your school’s special education coordinator and principal, save a copy for your records. You can say, “I am requesting an ARD/504 meeting within 10 school days to review my child’s current services and discuss out-of-district support, per IDEA guidelines.” Bring copies of testing, progress reports, and any outside evaluations to the meeting. Mike did this two weeks after the PTA meeting, and the district agreed to add three extra weekly reading sessions with a specialist starting this fall, no voucher required.
If you’re on the ESA waitlist for next year’s application window, get your paperwork ready now instead of scrambling when applications open. Most Texas banks and public libraries offer free notary services for income verification and proof of residency, so you can get those forms signed weeks in advance. Sign up for TEA’s official ESA email alerts directly on their website; don’t rely on school or community newsletters to share the opening date. If you plan to use funds for private tuition, lock in your acceptance letter before applications open—you’ll need proof of enrollment to get disbursed, and spots fill fast. If you’re a homeschool or private family that already got an award, keep a separate digital folder for every ESA receipt, and label each purchase with the specific school subject or activity it covers. The state runs random audits, and you can be forced to pay funds back if you can’t prove every dollar went to approved education costs.
I ran into Sarah at the grocery store a couple weeks after the meeting, while she loaded goldfish crackers and construction paper into her minivan. She told me she’d looked up the program’s budget after the PTA discussion, and hadn’t realized the money came from the same pot that funds our neighborhood school’s after-school STEM club, which her oldest attends once a week. She’s now organizing a curriculum swap for low-income homeschool families who didn’t get ESA awards, and came to the last school board meeting to ask the board not to cut the STEM program’s budget next year.
Lawmakers are already talking about expanding the ESA program by another $2 billion in the 2025 legislative session, but so far no bill adds priority for current public school students or sets aside funds specifically for low-income families. Last week, Mike texted our parent group a photo of Javi holding a sticker he got from his new reading specialist, grinning with half his front tooth missing. It’s not the private school spot he hoped for, but it’s more support than he had six months ago.
Last night, I sat at the kitchen table while Lila glued googly eyes to a rock for her school’s garden project, and I thought about how none of the parents I know care much about the political slogans around school choice. We just want enough support to help our kids learn, no matter where they go to school. This first $1 billion didn’t create many new choices, from what I can see. It mostly made the choices families already had a little easier. I’ll be watching next session to see if that changes. Until then, most of us will just keep sharing notary tips, showing up to meetings, and making it work one assignment at a time.
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